Govt: Nirbhaya convicts testing India’s patience
Aamir.khan2@timesgroup.com
New Delhi:03.02.2020
The Centre told the Delhi high court during a special hearing on Sunday the four Nirbhaya case convicts were “trying to test the patience of the nation” and people felt unsafe and didn’t send their daughters out of their houses because of monsters roaming around.
Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, while pressing for a stay on an order postponing the hanging of the four deathrow convicts in the 2012 gang rape case, told Justice Suresh Kait, “The crime was so inhuman, ghastly and devilish it shook the conscience of the nation.”
Citing the 2019 gangrape and murder of a Hyderabad vet after which the accused were killed by police in an alleged encounter and subsequent celebrations among the public, the SG said, “this shows people are losing faith in the criminal justice-delivery system.”
On Saturday, the court had issued a notice to the four convicts — Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur and Pawan Gupta — to respond to government’s plea seeking their immediate execution and setting aside of the trial court’s order staying the hanging scheduled for February 1.
The Centre accused the convicts of adopting delaying tactics to delay the inevitable. It said the convicts had committed an “abhorrent” act and its logical conclusion of a death sentence was confirmed by all courts. Mehta revisited the night of the crime and highlighted the cruelty inflicted upon the woman and how she was thrown off a bus and left to die on the road. In his opinion, a convict with sheer, calculated inaction, in tandem with other convicts, could frustrate the process of law. The Centre’s counsel also argued that seven years had passed but the convicts were still “playing” with the machinery of the judicial system.
Arguing on the point of the legal remedy of a mercy plea before the President, he said such a plea could be decided differently for different convicts. “Mercy jurisdiction is an individualistic jurisdiction. They can’t rely on the mercy plea with the President and say if one convict’s mercy is allowed, there could be a change of circumstances for the others,” Mehta argued.
This point was vehemently opposed by senior advocate Rebecca John, who represented convict Mukesh Singh.
John asked where the Centre was all this while during the warrant proceedings and why it had only “woken up” yesterday (Saturday).
“We are taking a life from a human being… And, therefore, the Constitution gives me the option of legal remedies. You keep saying delay, delay, delay... but you (Centre) never entered the trial court. Even death-row convicts have rights. They have rights to use their remedies and use it till their last breath of their lives,” she submitted.
The high court reserved its order after the arguments.
Full report on www.toi.in
The bench of Justice Suresh Kumar Kait reserved its order on the Centre’s plea
Aamir.khan2@timesgroup.com
New Delhi:03.02.2020
The Centre told the Delhi high court during a special hearing on Sunday the four Nirbhaya case convicts were “trying to test the patience of the nation” and people felt unsafe and didn’t send their daughters out of their houses because of monsters roaming around.
Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, while pressing for a stay on an order postponing the hanging of the four deathrow convicts in the 2012 gang rape case, told Justice Suresh Kait, “The crime was so inhuman, ghastly and devilish it shook the conscience of the nation.”
Citing the 2019 gangrape and murder of a Hyderabad vet after which the accused were killed by police in an alleged encounter and subsequent celebrations among the public, the SG said, “this shows people are losing faith in the criminal justice-delivery system.”
On Saturday, the court had issued a notice to the four convicts — Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur and Pawan Gupta — to respond to government’s plea seeking their immediate execution and setting aside of the trial court’s order staying the hanging scheduled for February 1.
The Centre accused the convicts of adopting delaying tactics to delay the inevitable. It said the convicts had committed an “abhorrent” act and its logical conclusion of a death sentence was confirmed by all courts. Mehta revisited the night of the crime and highlighted the cruelty inflicted upon the woman and how she was thrown off a bus and left to die on the road. In his opinion, a convict with sheer, calculated inaction, in tandem with other convicts, could frustrate the process of law. The Centre’s counsel also argued that seven years had passed but the convicts were still “playing” with the machinery of the judicial system.
Arguing on the point of the legal remedy of a mercy plea before the President, he said such a plea could be decided differently for different convicts. “Mercy jurisdiction is an individualistic jurisdiction. They can’t rely on the mercy plea with the President and say if one convict’s mercy is allowed, there could be a change of circumstances for the others,” Mehta argued.
This point was vehemently opposed by senior advocate Rebecca John, who represented convict Mukesh Singh.
John asked where the Centre was all this while during the warrant proceedings and why it had only “woken up” yesterday (Saturday).
“We are taking a life from a human being… And, therefore, the Constitution gives me the option of legal remedies. You keep saying delay, delay, delay... but you (Centre) never entered the trial court. Even death-row convicts have rights. They have rights to use their remedies and use it till their last breath of their lives,” she submitted.
The high court reserved its order after the arguments.
Full report on www.toi.in
The bench of Justice Suresh Kumar Kait reserved its order on the Centre’s plea
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