Supreme Court lets Centre, Delhi govt to seek fresh death warrant

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice to four death row convicts in Nirbhaya case on a plea by the Centre and Delhi government seeking separate execution of the death sentence of three convicts — Mukesh, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Kumar Singh — who have exhausted all their legal remedies, including mercy petitions.

The court issued notice that would be served on four convicts through Tihar Jail superintendent, as the Centre and Delhi government told the court that the four convicts were acting in “tandem” adopting “strategic inaction” to “frustrate the mandate of law”.

Fixing February 13 date for further hearing of the matter, the court allowed the Centre and the Delhi government to approach the trial court for the issuance of fresh warrants for the execution of death sentence.

The Centre and Delhi government have challenged February 5, 2020, Delhi High Court judgment, holding that all the four death row convicts in Nirbhaya case would be hanged simultaneously and not individually.

Issuing notice, a bench of Justice R. Banumathi, Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice A.S. Bopanna made it clear that the plea for separate hanging of  convicts sentenced to death in the same case would  involve the interpretation of the jail manual and would take a long time to decide and may further delay the execution.

“Issuance of notice would further prolong the proceedings,” Justice Bhushan said as Solicitor General, repeatedly urged the court to issue notice to the four convicts.

“They are working in tandem. It is a strategic inaction; it is not a case where he (Pawan Gupta) has no legal assistance. I (govt.) am executing the mandate of law and they (convicts) are frustrating the mandate of law,” the Solicitor General said.