Mumbai: The Maharashtra government Wednesday told the Bombay high court that there had been no deliberate or inordinate delay on its part in deciding and executing the death penalty imposed on two convicts in the 2007 Pune BPO employee’s gangrape and murder.

The state home department and superintendent of Yerwada jail, Pune, filed their affidavits in reply to the convicted duo’s petitions seeking halting of their execution scheduled on June 24. According to Purushottam Borate and Pradeep Kokade’s petitions, the inordinate delay in executing their sentence has violated their fundamental rights. They urged the high court to commute their death sentence to life imprisonment.

In its affidavit, the government said that the Pune sessions court delayed issuing warrants for the convicts’ execution despite several reminders sent by the Yerwada prison superintendent and additional director general, prisons department, Pune. The home department, in its affidavit, stated that the superintendent of Yerw-ada prison was informed on June 19, 2017, that the President had rejected the convicts’ mercy petitions.

“The Yerwada prison superintendent informed the convicts about the decision on the same day and also wrote a letter to the concerned sessions court, intimating it about the rejection of the mercy petitions and seeking appropriate orders to be passed regarding the death penalty imposed,” the affidavit said.

From June 19, 2017 to December 2018, the state authorities had written several letters to the sessions court, requesting for appropriate orders to be issued. “There has not been any delay on the part of the state government as such, either in intimating the convicts, or in forwarding the documents to the government of India," the state government said in its affidavit.