Nirbhaya Case: Delhi High Court dismisses Centre’s plea on stay of death
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday while dismissing the Centre’s plea challenging the trial court order which had stayed the death warrants in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case, noted that “the convicts have frustrated the process of law”. The Centre moved Supreme Court after High Court ruled the four convicts can’t be hanged separately. Justice Suresh Kumar Kait while dismissing the plea said, “Convicts have frustrated the process of law by using delay tactics. I direct the convicts to file any application regarding their remedies within one week from today after which the court expects the authorities to act.”
He further noted, “I have no hesitation in saying that after the review of the convicts were dismissed nobody has even bothered to execute the death warrants. They were waiting for reasons best known to them. All authorities were waiting and sleeping.”
The Centre in its plea filed through Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had challenged the January 31 order of Additional Sessions Judge Dharmendra Rana of Patiala House Courts.
Rana in his order had said, “Without commenting upon the dilatory tactics adopted by the convicts, suffice it would be to state that seeking redressal of one’s grievances through procedure established by law was the hallmark of any civilized society. The courts of this country cannot afford to adversely discriminate any convict, including death row convicts in pursuit of his legal remedies, by turning a Nelson’s eye towards him.”
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta while arguing the matter before the High Court had contended that the trial court order provides a perverse and misleading interpretation of Rule 836 of the Delhi Prison Rules.
“This error goes to the root of the issue. It deserves to have stayed. Every convict is enjoying defeating the judicial system in the country. Convicts are exploiting the process of law,” Mehta said. “There is a deliberate, well calculated, well thought out design to frustrate the process of law. It was a gang rape of a woman, inserting rods in her private parts, pulling out her intestines, and throwing her out of a moving bus,” he added. The Centre also submitted before the court that the four convicts can be hanged separately. “The execution should be one by one. The rule only says if the application of one is pending then execution of all has to be postponed.. but what does ‘application’ mean? It means an application pending before a court. A mercy plea is not an ‘application’,” Mehta had submitted. (IANS) warrants