HC throws out plea over mental health

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

05.03.2020

New Delhi: Delhi high court on Wednesday refused to entertain a plea seeking directions to the national human rights commission (NHRC) to intervene and enquire into the mental and physical state of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya case.

A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice C Hari Shankar questioned why the petitioner didn’t approach NHRC first and disposed of the matter.

Advocate A Rajarajan in his plea claimed the four convicts Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Thakur have been kept in solitary confinement under fear of death “on the whims and fancies” of the authorities and it can affect their mental stability.

The petition also referred to the allegations that the four were facing physical abuse in the prison, claiming that the authorities acted contrary to law by not initiating process to execute death sentence of the four convicts after the expiry of 30 days from the dismissal of their appeals by the Supreme Court in May 2017.

On January 7, death warrants were issued for the first time in the case to execute the four on January 22. But on January 17, the trial court changed the date of execution to February 1 after one of them — Singh — moved a mercy plea before the President. Later, on January 31 the trial court put on hold the execution after two more — Thakur and Sharma — moved mercy pleas.