PIL in Delhi HC seeks NHRC report about Nirbhaya convicts' health

A public interest litigation (PIL) was on Saturday filed in Delhi High Court seeking directions to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to set up an enquiry and submit a report about the physical and mental condition of the four death row convicts in Nirbhaya rape and murder case.

Petitioner A Rajarajan, through the PIL, sought directions to the NHRC for enquiring and submitting a report regarding the human rights violations of the four convicts committed by the concerned authorities who have been entrusted with the responsibility of executing the death sentence.

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 in contrary to the law from not initiating the process to execute the death sentence awarded to the four death 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.

This comes as a fresh death warrant has been issued for the four death row convicts -- Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh Singh -- in the case for their hanging at 6 am on March 3.

This comes as a fresh date has been issued for the execution of death warrant against four death-row convicts-- Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh Singh -- in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case. The new date of hanging the convicts has been set as March 3 at 6 am.

The four convicts were sentenced to death by a trial court, a decision which was upheld by the 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.