New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Saturday sought the response of the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape-and-murder case on the Centre's plea challenging the stay on the execution of their death sentence, which was scheduled for Saturday morning. The high court will again hear the matter on Sunday.
Justice Suresh Kumar Kait issued notice to the four convicts -- Mukesh Kumar (32), Vinay Sharma (26), Pawan Gupta (25) and Akshay Singh (31) -- besides the DG, Prisons and Tihar Jail, seeking their stand on the plea. DG Prison's lawyer told the court that its orders would be complied with. During the hearing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, told the court that the convicts in the Nirbhaya case had taken the process of law on a "joyride" and were acting in tandem to delay their execution.
He further told the court that the case would go down in the history of India as one where the convicts of a heinous crime tried the patience of the country. "This is a classic case where the convicts have taken the process of law on a joyride," Mehta said. The Ministry of Home Affairs rushed to the high court in the afternoon with three separate but identical petitions challenging the trial court's Friday order postponing the execution of the four convicts "till further orders".
Mehta referred to a previous Supreme Court judgment in the Shatrughan Chauhan case, in which it was observed that once the convict was informed about his fate of death, the execution should happen without delay, else it would have a dehumanising effect on the convict. He argued that the convicts were not only abusing the process of law, but they were testing everyone's patience. "This is the grossest abuse of the process of law," the Solicitor General said.
When the judge asked who was appearing for the convicts, Mehta said the petition was served on them in Tihar Jail but none appeared for them in the court. He urged the court to issue notice to the convicts and hear the matter again on Sunday. On being asked whether the convicts' personal presence was also required in the high court, the law officer replied in the negative and added that only the counsel's presence was needed.
Mehta submitted that the convicts wanted the trial court to understand the value of human life, but they forgot that the victim also had a life. "This was one of the cases which shook the conscience of the nation and the society is waiting for justice," he said. He told the court that Mukesh had claimed if there was any change in circumstance in future, he could again file a mercy plea and said, "If law is interpreted in this fashion, then no order of execution can ever be implemented or carried out."
"It will become a never ending process," Mehta added. The Solicitor General further said, "Can the rules be read to mean that just because one of the co-convicts has not filed a mercy plea, the remaining would not be hanged?" He told the court that according to the Supreme Court, a delay in the execution of a death row convict had a dehumanising effect.
"Here, one co-convict (Pawan), by his non-action, has ensured that the others go through the dehumanising effect," he said. Mehta went on to add that "apart from abusing the process of law, the convicts are creating a circumstance where the guidelines would be watered down". When the court asked whether all the convicts would be executed together, Mehta said it would be done one by one.
While Mukesh and Vinay's mercy pleas have been rejected by the President, Pawan has not yet filed it. Akshay's mercy plea was filed on Saturday and is pending. In the afternoon, the plea was mentioned before Chief Justice D N Patel for an urgent hearing and it was listed for Saturday itself. The plea, which sought setting aside of the trial court's order, made the convicts, the Director General (Prisons) and the Superintendent of Tihar Jail parties to it.
It said the trial court judge had acted beyond its jurisdiction in postponing the death warrants. The plea said the trial court, while postponing the execution of the death warrants "till further orders", had failed to consider that the four convicts were found guilty of a horrible, dreadful, cruel, abominable, ghastly, gruesome and heinous offence of rape coupled with a bone-chilling murder of a young woman, which shook the conscience of the entire country.
It further said the convicts were given a sufficient opportunity to avail all the remedies available to them, but they deliberately chose to delay the process of filing their pleas. The plea said the conduct of the convicts clearly showed their intention to delay the process of execution of the death sentence, which was not only an abuse of the process of law but also a mockery of courts and the judicial system. The 23-year-old paramedic student, referred to as Nirbhaya, was raped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a moving bus in south Delhi by six persons, before being thrown out on the road.
She died on December 29, 2012 in Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital. One of the six accused in the case, Ram Singh, allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail. A juvenile, who was among the accused, was convicted by a juvenile justice board and was released from a reformation home after serving a three-year term. The top court, in its 2017 verdict, had upheld the capital punishment awarded to the convicts by the Delhi High Court and the trial court.
