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Centre Moves Supreme Court Seeking 7-Day Deadline For Hanging Death Row Convicts

The plea of Ministry of Home Affairs assumes significance in view of the death row convicts in the sensational Nirbhaya gangrape

The Supreme Court of India in New Delhi. (Photo: PTI)
The Supreme Court of India in New Delhi. (Photo: PTI)

The Centre on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court for fixing a seven-day deadline for executing death penalty of condemned prisoners.

The plea of the Ministry of Home Affairs assumes significance in view of the death row convicts in the sensational Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case of 2012 filing review, curative and mercy petitions, which has delayed their hanging.

The MHA's plea sought a direction from the top court in fixing the deadline for filing of curative pleas after the rejection of review petitions.

It also sought a direction that "if the convict of death sentence wants to file mercy petition, it would be mandatory for a convict of death sentence to do so only within a period of seven days from the date of receipt of death warrant issued by the competent court".

The MHA submitted that the top court should "mandate all the competent courts, state governments, prison authorities in the country to issue death warrant of a convict within seven days of the rejection of his mercy petition and to execute death sentence within seven days thereafter irrespective of the stage of review petition/curative petition/mercy petition of his co-convicts".

The top court, on Jan. 20, had rejected the plea of a death row convict in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case challenging the Delhi High Court order which had dismissed his claim of being a juvenile at the time of offence saying he cannot re-agitate the issue by filing fresh application.

Opinion
Nirbhaya Case: Delhi Court Issues Fresh Death Warrants Against Four Convicts For Feb. 1

A Delhi court has recently issued fresh death warrants for Feb. 1 against the four convicts -- Vinay Sharma (26), Akshay Kumar Singh (31), Mukesh Kumar Singh (32) and Pawan (26) -- in the case after their hanging got delayed from Jan. 22 due to pending petitions.

The 23-year-old paramedic student, referred to as Nirbhaya, was gang-raped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of Dec. 16-17, 2012, in a moving bus in south Delhi by six people before she was thrown out on the road.