New Delhi: The Supreme Court said Friday it will hear February 11 the Centre’s plea challenging the Delhi High Court’s verdict which had dismissed its petition against the stay on execution of the four Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case convicts.
A bench headed by Justice R Bhanumathi did not heed to Solicitor General Tushar Mehta’s request to issue notices to the convicts on the Centre’s plea and said it would further delay the matter.
The bench, also comprising justices Ashok Bhushan and AS Bopanna, told Mehta that it would hear him February 11 and it may consider whether notice was required to be issued to the convicts.
At the outset, Mehta told the court that the ‘nation’s patience is being tested’ in the matter and the bench will have to lay down a law on the issue.
Mehta told the bench that one of the convicts Mukesh Kumar Singh has exhausted all his remedies, including mercy plea and the challenge to its rejection in the apex court.
The mercy pleas of Akshay Kumar and Vinay Kumar Sharma have already been dismissed, Mehta said, adding that the fourth convict Pawan Gupta has neither filed a curative petition nor a mercy plea.
“Pawan has chosen not to file a curative or a mercy petition. The question is, is the authority required to wait endlessly,” Mehta told the bench. To this, the bench said, “No one can be compelled to take remedies.”
Mehta said in this case there may be a situation where one convict ‘sits tight for five years’ and the others then approach the apex court seeking commutation of death penalty on the ground of delay in execution.
“The high court has granted them (convicts) one week time to avail all their remedies. This amply protects you,” the bench said.
Mehta said the bench will have to lay down the law on whether the convicts in a same case can be hanged separately or not. When the bench said it would hear the matter on February 11, he requested the court to issue notice to the four death row convicts.
“Let them come to this court Monday and say what they intend to do,” Mehta said. “Issuance of notice will not harm them. The high court had also issued notices to them. The court can have the benefit of their assistance on the issue. As an institution we are answerable to the society,” Mehta said.
The Centre, through its Additional Solicitor General KM Natraj, had moved the top court seeking an urgent hearing on its appeal assailing the verdict which held Wednesday that the death row convicts have to be executed together and not separately.
Natraj had told the court that jail authorities are unable to execute the convicts in the case despite the fact that their review petitions have been dismissed and curative petitions and mercy pleas of three of them have been rejected.
The high court set a week’s deadline for them to avail the remaining remedies. If the convicts choose not to make any type of petition in seven days from now, the institutions and authorities concerned will deal with the matter, as per the law, without further delay, it had said.
PTI