Nirbhaya case: HC critical of authorities for delay in seeking death warrants

The Delhi High Court was on Wednesday critical of the delay caused by the authorities in seeking issuance of death warrants for the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case as also of the "delay tactics" adopted by the convicts.

The Delhi government had moved the court for issuance of black warrants, two years after the supreme court in 2017 had dismissed the review petition against the confirmation of death penalty.

Justice Suresh Kumar Kait said that after the apex court dismissed in 2017 the appeals of the four convicts -- Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Kumar Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar (31) -- "nobody had bothered" to move the trial court for issuance of death warrants for their execution.

This step was taken only after Akshay's review plea was dismissed on December 18 last year, it said.

"All the authorities concerned were sleeping" and waited till December 2019 "for reasons best known to them" to seek issuance of death warrants, it said.

While the Delhi government had not taken any step, the victim's family had moved the trial court in February 2019 seeking issuance of the death warrants.

On the "delay tactics" adopted by the convicts, the court noted that Mukesh had filed a review against the apex court's dismissal of his appeal after a lapse of 186 days, while Vinay and Pawan had moved a similar plea after the lapse of 225 days. Akshay moved the review plea after a delay of 950 days.

The court further noted that Mukesh and Vinay moved curative pleas after a gap of 550 and 549 days, respectively, from the date of dismissal of their review pleas.

Akshay moved his curative petition 42 days after dismissal of his review plea, while Pawan is yet to move such a petition, it observed.

The court also noted that while the others have moved their respective mercy pleas, Pawan was yet to seek pardon from the President.

"It cannot be disputed that the convicts have adopted all the delay tactics to frustrate the warrants," it said.

"Therefore, in the interest of justice, I hereby direct the convicts to take steps if they wish to make any type of petition before any institutions/authorities available under law within one week from today, failing which this court expects from the institutions/ authorities concerned to deal, as per the law applicable on delay, if any, without further delay," it added.