THE CONVICTS EXHAUST ALL THEIR LEGAL OPTIONS AS THE PRESIDENT REJECTS THE MERCY PLEA
NEW DELHI:- On Wednesday, the president of India, Mr Ram Nath Kovind, Rejected the final mercy plea filed by one of the four convicts Pawan Gupta. The Delhi government then moved to a city court to issue a new date for the death sentence execution of the four convicts in the Nirbhaya- 2012, gang rape and murder case.
As per the prison rules in Delhi, a notice period of 14 days is provided to the prisoner after the rejection of mercy petition. All four accused namely Mukesh Kumar Singh- 32, Akshay Kumar Singh- 31, Vinay Sharma- 26 and Pawan Gupta- 25 are to be hanged together.
The execution had deferred for the third time when Pawan filed for mercy to the president, on 2nd March 2020. It was the 3rd time in about 6 weeks that the death penalty had been deferred. The first date of execution was declared on 7th January and fixed to be on 22nd January. This was postponed to 1st February. On 31st January the court again adjourned the execution. On 17th February, a new date was assigned and finalised for the implementation of the death warrants, 3rd March 2020 at 6:00 am.
Pawan Gupta is left with one option, and that is to challenge the rejection of the plea in Supreme Court. The father of Nirbahya expressed his hopefulness in the whole situation and is confident in getting justice for his daughter. He hopes that the convicts will be positively hanged this month.
The High Court in Delhi also declined a petition to seek the directions of National Human Rights Commission ( NHRC), to screen the mental and physical condition of the convicts. The bench of judges declared the plea to be irrelevant saying that petition should have been filed before NHRC before the High Court. Hence the intervention of the NHRC will not be entertained.
The six accused of the case were taken into custody soon after the brutal incident had taken place in December 2012. One of the accused had committed suicide by hanging himself in jail. The juvenile accused was released in 2015, after three years in rehabilitation. The four convicts were given the death warrants within a year, but the execution hasn’t happened as yet.
The review petitions and mercy pleas had been filed by the four convicts over the years, delaying the date of execution. As of now, all possible legal options of four convicts are exhausted, and now everyone is seeking for a final time of execution.
As per the latest death warrant issued, the execution is scheduled to be conducted on 20th March 2020 at 5:30 am. The decision was made in Patiala House Court, by the Chief Justice Dharmendra Rana. All the convicts have been directed to submit their responses to the court latest by Thursday.
The long battle will hopefully come to an end on 20th March 2020 when justice will be served to the brave daughter Nirbhaya.
