HC reserves order on govt plea against stay on execution

DEC 16 CASE Solicitor General says a deliberate, calculated and well thought out design by convicts to ’frustrate mandate of law’

NEWDELHI: The Delhi High Court on Sunday reserved its judgment on the Centre and Tihar Jail’s plea challenging the stay on the execution of the four convicts in the December 16 gang rape case.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta on Sunday told the Delhi High Court at a special hearing t hat t her e i s a de l i be r a t e , calculated and well thought out design by the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder case convicts to “frustrate mandate of law” by getting their execution delayed.

Mehta told Justice Suresh Kait that convict Pawan Gupta’s move of not filing curative or mercy petition is a deliberate, calculated inaction.

“There is deliberate, calculated and well thought of design to frustrate mandate of law,” Mehta told the high court which is hearing Centre’s plea challenging stay on the execution of four death row convicts in the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder case.

“There cannot be any delay in the interest of justice, death sentence cannot be delayed. In the interest of the convict, any delay in death sentence will have a dehumanising effect on the accused,” Mehta said.

The Solicitor General also told the court that the President had already examined the facts and rejected the mercy pleas of Mukesh and Vinay.

He further added that just on the basis of speculation the court cannot pass an order.

TUSHAR MEHTA, Solicitor General

There cannot be any delay in the interest of justice, death sentence cannot be delayed. In the interest of the convict, any delay in death sentence will have a dehumanising effect on the accused

It would not be correct to presume that the President may in future commute the death sentence and hence the order cannot be delayed or stalled, he said.

Mehta reminded that the Delhi government did not have a problem nor did Tihar Jail with individual executions.

On Friday, a Delhi court had postponed the hanging of the four convicts, which had been scheduled for February 1 at 6am, till further orders on a plea by one of the convicts – Vinay Sharma – seeking a stay on the execution of the death warrant in wake of the mercy plea filed before the President.

Advocate AP Singh appeari ng f or death r ow c onvicts Pawan Gupta, Akshay Kumar and Vinay Sharma, contended that there was no prescribed time given to execute the death sentence by the Supreme Court and Constitution.

The convicts’ lawyer, advocate AP Singh, told the high court that there is no prescribed time given to execute the death sentence by the Supreme Court and the Constitution.

“There is no prescribed time given to execute the death sentence by the Supreme Court and the Constitution. Only in the case of mercy petition, when it is dismissed, 14 days time is given as per the Shatrugan Singh Chauhan judgement,” news agency ANI quoted Singh as saying.

Advocate Si ngh, who is appearing for convicts Pawan Gupta, Akshay Thakur and Vinay Sharma, asked: “Why there was a hurry to execute the death sentence i n t his case only.”

“They (convicts) belong to rural areas and Dalit families. They come to Delhi and get implicated. Mukesh and Ram Singh are Dalits. Both are brothers who came from a rural part of Rajasthan. It is not convicts’ fault. They cannot be made to bear brunt of ambiguity in the law,” Singh said.

Senior advocate Rebecca John, appearing on behalf of convict Mukesh, said that the “Centre has sought the setting aside of the order of the Patiala House Court” when “an earlier Delhi High Court order has clearly said that any order of the trial court should be challenged in the Supreme Court only”.

She said that the petition filed by the ministry of home affairs is not maintainable before the Delhi High Court.

“I am making the submission that every death row convict, held guil t y under heinous offence, has a right. No one can stop death row convicts from taking legal remedies,” she added