Just before execution of four Nirbhaya case convicts extracted another last-minute reprieve as a Delhi court deferred their execution indefinitely.
Convicts Pawan Gupta, Mukesh Singh, Akshay Singh and Vinay Sharma will not be hanged until further court orders. Death sentence has already been put off once in a haze of review, curative and mercy petitions. The death warrant has been cancelled and no new date has been given said the lawyer of convict.
Nirbhaya’s mother cried as she said that a convict’s lawyer had challenged her in court. He challenged me…he said there would be no hanging, she told media after an excruciating day waiting in courts.
Taking advantage of lacuna of a legal system that the government says is skewed, the convicts filed multiple petitions to delay their hanging.
Today a new petition was filed before the Supreme Court of India and rejected. Pawan Gupta’s claim of being a minor at the time of the 2012 gang-rape and killing was dismissed by the Supreme Court for the second time in two weeks. He had asked the court to review its decision last week, even though he had been told that once rejected, an age claim cannot be contested again.
Mercy petition filed by convict Vinay Sharma that secured today’s reprieve. Even if the President of India rejects it today, the convict has to be given 14 days till execution, as per the law.
Given the pattern, on the 13th day, another convict will file a mercy petition.
On the government’s request on January 22 for a change in the rules to prevent convicts from taking undue advantage of the law the Supreme Court today agreed to consider amendments that were more considerate towards the victims and their families. The government has suggested a time limit for the convicts to use their legal options so their death sentence is not delayed endlessly.
