No law for simultaneous execution: Centre to SC

Centre and Delhi government challenge Delhi High Court order

NEW DELHI: The Centre and the Delhi governments on Thursday submitted before the Supreme Court that law does not mandate that all death row convicts in a given case should be executed simultaneously. They also argued that there is no legal impediment to execute death row convicts who have exhausted their legal remedies though co-convicts who have been sentenced in the same case have not availed all their options.

The submission was made while challenging a Delhi High Court order, in which it had refused to interfere with the postponement of execution of the four death row convicts in the 2012 Delhi gang rape case. Centre’s law officer, additional solicitor general KM Nataraj mentioned the matter on Thursday before justice NV Ramana for an early hearing. The judge agreed to list the case on Friday.

The petition by the central and Delhi governments also pointed out that the Delhi prison rules do not mandate simultaneous execution of co-convicts and a convict who has exhausted all his remedies cannot frustrate the mandate of law merely because the mercy petition of one of the co-convict is pending before the President and another co-convict has chosen not to even file the mercy petition. The Delhi High Court had turned down a request to hang at least two of the four convicts who

have exhausted all their legal options. In its judgment, the high court had cited a Supreme Court verdict in an “unfortunate” case where after one convict was executed, the co-accused’s death sentence was commuted to life. “Convict Mukesh (who was the first to file a mercy petition) cannot be adversely segregated from the similarly placed convicts simply because he has been sincerely and earnestly pursuing his legal remedies,” Justice Suresh Kumar Kait of the Delhi high court had ruled.

Immediately after the HC verdict, the mercy petition filed by one of the convicts, Akshay was rejected by the President.

Three of the four convicts in

the gang rape case have now exhausted all their legal remedies. However, one of the convicts, Pawan Gupta is yet to file his curative or mercy petitions.

Additional Sessions Judge, Patiala House, had on January 7, 2020 issued a death warrant against four convicts and scheduled their execution on January 22.

Two of the accused, Mukesh and Vinay Sharma then filed curative petitions in the Supreme Court challenging the May 2017 judgment of the top court which had upheld their conviction and death sentence. The Supreme Court dismissed their curative petitions on January 14.

Immediately after that, Mukesh had filed his mercy plea before the President which led to the execution date of the four convicts being postponed to February 1.

The mercy plea by Mukesh was rejected by the President on January 29 while Vinay Sharma’s mercy plea was turned down on February 1. Akshay filed his curative petition in Supreme Court which was dismissed on January 30. His mercy plea was rejected by the President on February 5.

Meanwhile, the additional sessions judge had on January 31 stayed the execution of the convicts citing the fact that all the convicts have not exhausted their legal remedies.

The four death row convicts have timed their mercy petitions in a sequence, allegedly to buy time. The Delhi HC while rejecting the centre’s plea to hang the convicts had also noted that the convicts adopted all the delaying tactics to frustrate the warrants but noted that the government hadn’t acquitted themselves either.

Once the Supreme Court rejected their criminal appeals on 5 May, 2017 against the death sentence, the judge said “nobody had bothered to execute the death warrants”.

“Even thereafter, all authorities concerned were sleeping and waited till Akshay Kumar Singh filed a plea with 950-day delay on December 10, 2019 and the same was dismissed on December 18, 2019,” the Delhi high court noted in its order.