The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a PIL seeking an order to execute the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case in the next two weeks.
A Bench led by Justice Madan B. Lokur asked the PIL petitioner Alakh Alok Srivastava whether the petition was a joke played on the court. “What kind of a prayer are you making,” Justice Lokur asked the petitioner. Mr. Srivastava argued that it was over four months since the Supreme Court dismissed the review petitions of the convicts, but the execution of the condemned men had still not taken place.
Nirbhaya rapists had inched closer to the gallows in July this year when the SC rejected their plea to review its May 2017 judgment confirming their death penalty for the gruesome gangrape of the 23-year-old paramedic in a moving bus in the national capital six years ago.
The convicts had pleaded for commuting their death sentence on the ground that they were not properly represented by lawyers during the trial and vital pieces of evidence in their favour were not brought before the court. They said the sentence if carried out would amount to “cold-blooded killing” by the State.
A Special Bench of the then Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, Justices R. Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan rejected the plea.
