December 16, 2012 gangrape case: Appearing for Centre, Mehta, said there was a deliberate, calculated and well thought of design by the death row convicts to “frustrate mandate of law” by getting their execution delayed.
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday will pronounce the order on the Centre’s plea challenging the stay on the execution of four convicts in the December 16, 2012 gangrape-murder case. The court had reserved the order on Sunday.
Last week Friday, a trial court had postponed the execution of death warrants issued against the four convicts, saying the country cannot afford to discriminate against a death row convict in pursuit of legal remedies.
On December 16, 2012, a 23-year-old woman was gangraped and assaulted inside a moving bus in South Delhi by six persons, before being thrown out on the road. She died on December 29, 2012 at a hospital in Singapore.
Appearing for the Centre, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had told Justice Suresh Kait that there was a deliberate, calculated and well thought of design by the death row convicts to “frustrate mandate of law” by getting their execution delayed.
“Not hanging the convicts will send a wrong message to the society at large,” the SG further said, adding that “the execution of its executive power is at stake”.
He also cited last year’s alleged police “encounter” in Hyderabad and said the public celebration of the killing of all four accused in the rape-murder case was indicative of “depreciation in the country’s judicial system”. All four accused in the rape and murder of a Hyderabad veterinarian were shot dead by the Telangana Police in December last year when they were taken to the site to recreate the crime scene.
Arguing that the Centre should have approached the Supreme Court against the trial court order, Senior advocate Rebecca M John, appearing for convict Mukesh, had said the authority to approach for execution is Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) and not the Union Of India. “You may hang me. But no one has the right to condemn me for working within the legal framework,” she said.
Mehta told the court that convict Pawan Gupta’s move of not filing a curative or mercy petition was deliberate, calculated inaction.