Larger bench to hear plea of death row convicts: SC

The Supreme Court today said that a three-judge bench would decide whether death row convicts can approach it again challenging their proposed hanging even after exhausting all their legal remedies.
A vacation bench comprising justices D Y Chandrachud and S K Kaul fixed after summer holidays the pleas of death row convict Babu alias Ketan and another seeking a stay on their hanging.
Senior advocate Salman Khurshid sought urgent hearing on the plea saying that their mercy petitions have already been rejected by President Pranab Mukherjee on May 25 and death warrants could be issued anytime.
The bench responded by saying that the moment such petitions are filed in the apex court by the condemned prisoners, the prison authorities are intimated by the registry about such filing, ruling out the possibility of execution.

Dealing with legal aspects, the court said that in the past, three-judges bench has been hearing such matters which include the question as to whether such convicts can file fresh writ petitions against the capital punishment after the dismissal of their appeals, reviews and curative pleas by the apex court.
Khurshid said that the convicts have challenged the Supreme Court rules which permit summary dismissal of appeals of convicts in death row cases.

Babu alias Ketan and Sanni alias Devendra were awarded death sentence along with another person by a Indore court in Madhya Pradesh for rape and murder of a four-year-old girl in 2012.

The sentence was upheld by the Madhya Pradesh High Court in 2014 and by the apex court on January 6, 2015.
The convicts had kidnapped the child from outside her relative's house in Indore. They then sexually assaulted her, strangled her to death and dumped the body in a drain.