NEW DELHI, Dec 18:
A death warrant for hanging the four convicts in the Nirbhaya case will not be issued by a city court for now as it gave a week’s time today to know whether they are filing mercy petitions, hours after the Supreme Court dismissed the last review plea against the capital punishment.
As Additional Sessions judge Satish Kumar Arora adjourned till January 7 the hearing on applications by Nirbhaya’s parents and the Delhi Government for issuing the death warrant, the girl’s mother broke down in the court and asked where are the rights of the victim.
“The court can issue death warrant. Nothing prevents the court from issuing death warrants,” the lawyers for the parents and the Delhi Government told the court, maintaining that the convicts were resorting to delaying tactics.
Nirbhaya’s mother again fought back tears during a brief media interaction outside the Patiala House court complex and demanded a speedy hanging.
“The convicts have been given one more chance. Why are their rights being considered? What about our rights?” she asked, adding, “There is no guarantee that a final judgement will be delivered on the next hearing as well.”
Nirbhaya’s parents watched the proceedings in the 2012 gang-rape and murder case both at the Supreme Court and the Patiala House complex.
Judge Arora directed Tihar jail authorities to seek a response within a week from the four death row convicts as to whether they are filing mercy pleas against their executions with the President of India.
After a 30-minute hearing, the judge informed the four convicts via video conference about Wednesday’s proceedings.
With the apex court’s verdict on the plea by Akshay Kumar Singh, 33, the review petitions of all the four convicts in the case stand dismissed by the top court.
The top court said it found “no error” in the main judgement requiring any review and “confirmed” the capital punishment awarded to Akshay, who was the cleaner of the bus in which the ghastly crime took place,
“In light of the aggravating circumstances and considering that the case falls within the category of ‘rarest of rare cases’, the death penalty is confirmed.”
In its 20-page judgement, the bench termed as “unfortunate” that grounds like “futility of awarding death sentence in ‘Kalyug’ where a person is no better than a dead body” and “level of pollution in Delhi-NCR is so great that life is short” were raised in the review plea.
“We find it unfortunate that such grounds have been raised in the matter as serious as the present case.”
The convicts are yet to file curative petition in the Apex Court. This petition is the last legal recourse available to a convict and it is generally considered in-chamber.
On July 9 last year, the apex court dismissed the review pleas filed by the other three convicts — Mukesh (30), Pawan Gupta (23) and Vinay Sharma (24), saying no grounds have been made out by them for review of its 2017 judgement upholding the death penalty. The Delhi High Court earlier confirmed the death penalty awarded by a trial court.
Consoling the sobbing mother of Nirbhaya, judge Arora said, “I have full sympathy with you. I know someone has died but there are their rights too. We are here to listen to you but are also bound by the law”.
“Everywhere we go they (the convicts) say they have legal remedies. What do we have?” she told the court.
Nirbhaya’s father told reporters they will not be satisfied till a death warrant is issued. (PTI)
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