The convicts were scheduled to be hanged on March 3.
A Delhi court Monday deferred the hanging of four death row convicts in the December 16, 2012, gangrape-murder case pending disposal of convict Pawan Gupta’s mercy plea. The convicts were to be hanged together on Tuesday at 6 am. This is the third time the death warrants have been stayed by the court.
Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Dharmender Rana said the death sentence cannot be executed pending disposal of Pawan’s mercy petition before the President. “Despite stiff resistance from the victim’s side, I am of the opinion that any condemned convict must not meet his Creator with a grievance in his bosom that the courts of the country have not acted fairly in granting him an opportunity to exhaust his legal remedies,” ASJ Rana said.
“Therefore, I have no hesitation in holding that the mercy petition is an important constitutional legal remedy available for the convict and guided by the cherished legal principle Ubi jus ubi remedium i.e. where there is a right there is a legal remedy. I am of the opinion that the application is very much maintainable,” the court said.
After the hearing, the victim’s mother said, “This shows the failure of our system. The whole world is watching how justice is being delayed in India.”
The Delhi Home department has recommended that Pawan’s mercy petition be rejected, government officials said. It will now be sent to L-G Anil Baijal.
On Monday, the Supreme Court also dismissed Pawan’s curative petition challenging the rejection of his review petition against the death sentence awarded to him. A five-judge bench headed by Justice N V Ramana, which took up his plea in-chamber, said, “In our opinion, no case is made out within the parameters indicated by the court in its earlier decisions.”
Gupta was the only one among the convicts who had not filed a curative petition. The curative petitions filed by the other three were already dismissed.
Earlier in the day, the ASJ had dismissed the applications of Pawan and co-accused Akshay Kumar Singh for staying their death warrants. During the hearing, the court pulled up the convict’s lawyer, A P Singh, when he told the court that he has filed a fresh mercy petition for Pawan.
The ASJ asked Singh, “How can you do this? You leave your client hanging till the last hour and then file?” Singh replied, “I was waiting for documents.”
The ASJ said, “Then you are not giving proper legal aid.”
Singh told the ASJ he got to know about the rejection of Pawan’s curative petition through media. Special public prosecutor Irfan Ahmed told the court, “This game of hide-and-seek needs to be handled heads-on. This application is not maintainable…” The ASJ then told Singh, “Tell us, you should ideally be moving when mercy is being considered…under which provision should the court come to your rescue?”
The Delhi High Court had earlier directed the convicts to exhaust their legal remedies by February 11. The ASJ said, “Simple question, Mr Singh. You, as a death row convict, are looking to disrespect the High Court order. Under what law should I come to your rescue?…If the government acted arbitrarily, then you could have approached the court…You are playing with fire, Mr Singh. You must be very careful.”
The court had on February 17 ordered that the convicts — Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Kumar Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) — be hanged on March 3 after it issued fresh death warrants, observing that deferring the execution any further would be “sacrilegious” to the rights of the victim for expeditious justice.