Nirbhaya case: As BJP, AAP blame each other, Vice President calls for early execution of convicts

The Vice President of India and Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu today extended his support to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) lawmaker Sanjay Singh’s call for early execution of the four convicts in Nirbhaya gang-rape case.

Naidu said that all involved institutions in the Nirbhaya case should fulfil their responsibilities and should ensure that the verdict is implemented at the earliest. He argued that all the convicts were given legal opportunities to defend themselves and they had exhausted all of them and are now delaying their execution on one excuse or the other.

“We cannot allow this sort of thing to go on in this country. People have been given all opportunities, after all, legal remedies exhausted. But by some process or the other, if this is getting delayed, all concerned must know that judgment is implemented at the earliest,” said the Chairman.

AAP’s Sanjay Singh in Rajya Sabha had requested for an intervention of the President and Supreme Court for speedy execution of death sentence awarded to the four convicts in the case.

On December 16, 2012, the student was gang-raped in a moving bus and brutalised by six people in Delhi. The student died at a Singapore hospital where she was airlifted for treatment.

Singh contended that due to public outrage and street protests, the men were convicted by a fast-track court, but it had taken years to enforce the verdict. In the higher courts, Singh said, the case has only been getting deferred from one date to another.

However, Union Minister & BJP leader Prakash Javadekar has claimed that the delay in the execution of the four convicts was due to the state government. “The appeal of the convicts was rejected by Supreme Court in 2017 but jail authorities took more than a year to complete the process of informing the convicts,” said the minister.

However, the AAP says that the “police, Tihar DG and law and order” come under the centre, so they should stop blaming the Delhi government for the delay.

“Give us Delhi Police and law-and-order responsibility for two days and we will hang Nirbhaya convicts,” Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia dared.

Recently, the Delhi High Court held a special hearing over the weekend at the request of the Centre. The Centre wanted orders to hang the convicts who had exhausted their appeals and mercy petition. The ruling hasn’t been delivered yet.

Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta contended that the convicts were trying to defeat the mandate of the law by intentionally delaying the executions.

President Ram Nath Kovind has already rejected the mercy petition of two convicts, Mukesh Singh and Vinay Sharma. The mercy plea of the third death row convict Akshay Thakur is pending. The fourth convict is yet to file a mercy petition.

One of the key accused, Ram Singh, had allegedly committed suicide in Tihar jail during the pendency of the case, while the sixth was a minor at the time of the commission of the crime and was let out after serving a three-year remand in a juvenile justice home.