New Delhi: The Supreme Court of India will hear tomorrow the Centre government’s plea seek separate hanging of the Nirbhaya convicts. The Centre approached Supreme Court after Delhi High Court rejected the plea to hang the four convicts separately.
Additional Solicitor General, K. M. Nataraj, submitted Central government’s plea in the Supreme Court and requested urgent listing of the matter.
The central government argues that the Delhi Prison rules of 2018 says that the legal petitions of co-convicts in a case do not have any bearing on a convict whose mercy petition is rejected. This means that the rules do not prohibit separate executions of co-convicts.
The four convicts in the Nirbhaya case has been extending the time of their execution by filing mercy petitions one by one. Now, Pawan Gupta is the convict left to file mercy plea and curative petition. Execution cannot be carried out when their mercy plea and curative petition is being considered. Moreover, there is a stipulation that co-convicts of a crime must be hanged together only.
The Central government is trying to provide justice for the family of the Nirbhaya victim by executing the convicts as soon as possible. However, their late filing of mercy pleas and curative petitions and the way they file it one by one has extended the date of their execution delaying the delivery of justice for Nirbhaya who was brutally raped and murdered in Delhi in 2012.
