The Supreme Court on Friday will hear a plea filed by Central government challenging the Delhi High Court judgment which had dismissed its appeal to separately execute the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya Case.
A three member bench of Justices R Banumathi Ashok Bhushan & AS Bopanna will hear the plea at 12:30pm.
The SC on Thursday had agreed to hear the plea on Friday by Delhi government and Centre’s appeal challenging the Delhi High Court’s verdict dismissing their plea against stay on the execution of the four death row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case.
Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj had mentioned the matter for urgent listing before a three-judge bench headed by Justice Ramana and comprising justices NV Ramana, Sanjiv Khanna and Krishna Murari.
In another Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj had mentioned the matter for urgent listing before a three-judge bench headed by Justice Ramana and comprising justices NV Ramana, Sanjiv Khanna and Krishna Murari.
ASG had submitted that the convict Akshay’s mercy has been rejected by the President yesterday. Nataraj told the court that jail authorities are unable to execute the convicts in the case, despite the fact that their review petitions have been dismissed and exhausting all the legal remedies.
The appeal was filed shortly after the high court directed the convicts, waiting on death row, to file any application they want within a week after which authorities should act.
In his order, Justice Suresh Kait of the high court refused to set aside the trial court’s stay on the execution of the death warrant, reiterating that under the law, co-convicts cannot be executed on separate dates.
In effect, the high court set a week’s timeframe for the condemned prisoners — Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur and Pawan Gupta –- to exhaust all their legal remedies.
A Delhi court on Thursday had asked the four Nirbhaya case death-row convicts to respond by tomorrow on an application filed by the Tihar jail authorities for fixing fresh date and time for their execution.
The response of the condemned prisoners — Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Kumar Sharma (26) and Akshay Thakur (31) – was sought by Additional Sessions Judge Dharmendra Rana.
The Centre’s plea, filed through Special Public Prosecutor Irfan Ahmed, said fresh black warrant be issued in the “interest of justice”.
On January 31, the trial court had postponed till further orders the hanging of the 2012 gangrape and murder case convicts, who are lodged in Tihar jail.