‘Sinful to condemn convicts’: Judge rejects death warrant plea against 4 convicts

A Delhi court has dismissed Tihar Jail request to grant a fresh date of execution through the issuance of a death warrant for the four convicts facing execution in the Delhi gang rape and murder case on Friday.

While hearing the arguments, the court sought to know from Tihar authorities, how they presumed that no plea will be filed by Pawan Gupta, one of the four convicts, within the one-week deadline granted on February 5 by the Delhi High Court.

It observed that the death warrants can't be issued "merely on the basis of surmise and conjecture".

The petitioner told the court that since Pawan had not filed any legal challenge since 2018 when his review petition was dismissed by the SC, it was unlikely that he would file one now.

The court didn't agree and said it upholds the right to legal remedies for all the convicts in a telling statement.

"It's criminally sinful to condemn the convicts when the law permits them to live," it observed.

Tihar jail authorities had sought a fresh date of execution for the four convicts in the infamous Delhi gang rape and murder case of 2012 citing dismissal of mercy petitions of three convicts by the President of India and absence of any pending application by the convicts before courts.

The defence counsel, however, called the application premature in the view of the February 5 Delhi High Court verdict that had given the convicts a week's time to exhaust their legal remedies before authorities could decide on the next step.

The Tihar jail authorities had argued that it would be fitting for the court to fix a new date for execution keeping the HC deadline in mind.

Pawan Gupta is the only convict who has not yet filed a curative petition which is the last legal remedy available to him, after which he has the option of filing a mercy plea before the President of India.

The trial court had first issued black warrants on January 7 and fixed January 22 as the day for execution, which was later postponed to February 1 and later postponed indefinitely.

The case pertains to brutal gang-rape and the subsequent murder of a 22-year-old physiotherapy intern in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, in south Delhi.

Six people including the four convicts, Ram Singh and a juvenile -- were named as accused in the case.

The trial of the five adults began in a fast-track court in March 2013 and Ram Singh allegedly committed suicide soon after in Tihar Jail, while Mukesh, Vinay, Akshay and Pawan were sentenced to death in September 2013.