The Supreme Court on Monday turned down a plea seeking donation of organs by the four convicts in Nirbhaya gang-rape case.
The court while dismissing the plea by former judge MF Saldana, noted that “organ donation has to be voluntary”. “To execute a person is the saddest part for the family. You (petitioner) want their body to cut into pieces… have some human approach,” said the apex court.
The petitioner he had asked the Supreme Court to direct jail authorities to give a choice to the four convicts to offer their bodies for medical research and donate their organs. The petitioner had also requested the court to consider the “desirability of making it as a condition precedent in the case of all executions”.
Earlier today, the Supreme Court dismissed a curative petition filed by Pawan Gupta, one of the four death row convicts – a day before the scheduled date of hearing. After the rejection of the curative petition, Gupta can now approach President Ram Nath Kovind with a mercy plea. The other three convicts have exhausted all their legal remedies– as their mercy pleas have already been rejected by the President.
A 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who came to be known as ”Nirbhaya”, was gang-raped and savagely assaulted on the night of December 16, 2012, in a moving bus in South Delhi. She died of her injuries a fortnight later in a Singapore hospital.
Six people, including the four convicts, Ram Singh and a juvenile — were named as accused.
The trial of the five adult men began in a special fast-track court in March 2013.
Ram Singh, the prime accused, allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself in Tihar jail days after the trial began. The juvenile, who was said to be the most brutal of the attackers, was put in a correctional home for three years.
The juvenile was released in 2015 and sent to an undisclosed location amid concerns over a threat to his life. He, when released, was 20 years old.
The trial of the four adults began in a special fast-track court in March 2013 and they were sentenced to death in September 2013 by the trial court.