Delhi HC asks petitioner seeking report on Nirbhaya convicts' health to approach NHRC

Delhi High Court on Wednesday asked the petitioner, who sought an enquiry and report about the health of convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case, to approach the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) for the same.

A division bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice C Harishankar disposed of the petition saying that it is not maintainable adding that it sees no reason to entertain the petition.

A public interest litigation (PIL) was on Saturday filed in the court seeking directions to the commission to set up an enquiry about the physical and mental health of the four death row convicts in the case.

The PIL, filed by one A Rajarajan, sought directions to the NHRC to enquire and submit a report regarding the human rights violations committed by the concerned authorities entrusted with the job of executing the death sentence of the four convicts.

The plea alleged that keeping the convicts in solitary confinement and proceeding with the execution procedures before exhaustion of their legal remedies were an apparent violation of fundamental and human rights of the convicts.

It said that the concerned authorities acted contrary to the law from not initiating the process to execute the death sentence awarded to the convicts immediately after the expiry of 30 days from the dismissal of their criminal appeals by the apex court in its order dated May 5, 2017.

The petition stated that the sudden initiation of execution proceedings on January 2020, preceding month of general elections, when the exhaustion of legal remedies of the four death convicts were still halfway and again staying the execution proceedings on the grounds of allowing to exhaust the legal remedies of the convicts and once again issuing a death warrant when a matter is pending before supreme court is against settled principles of law, reasonableness, prudence and further raises doubts on the intentions of the concerned authorities.

The four convicts were sentenced to death by a trial court, a decision which was upheld by Delhi High Court and Supreme Court, for the gangrape and brutalising of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012. The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later.