Nirbhaya case: Resilience of law safeguards against human error, not weakness, says court

Resilience of law signifies inherent safeguards against human errors and not the weakness of law, a Delhi court observed on Thursday while addressing concerns over the efficacy of the Rule of Law due to the considerable time consumed by the judiciary in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case.

While dismissing a plea filed by three of the four death-row convicts seeking a stay on their execution, Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana said: "When would the convicts meet the Creator for their eternal penitence? The issue has been pestering the conscience of the community for past some time. The time consumed by the process of law has even led some diffident voices to timorously question the very efficacy of 'Rule of Law'.

"Let me inform all the suspecting souls that in this great land of Gautam Buddha and Gandhi, Rule of Law and not impetuous mob mentality, decides the fate of even the most wretched criminals and most abominable crimes. The resilience of law signifies the inherent safeguards against human errors and not the weakness of law".

The convicts tried to delay the hanging by resorting to all kinds of tactics but in vain as the court on Thursday cleared the decks for Friday's hanging by dismissing the plea as no valid ground was brought to its notice to justify the stay of execution of death warrants.

On March 5, a trial court issued fresh death warrants for 5.30 am on March 20 for the execution of convicts Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31).

The warrants, which were issued for the first time on January 7, have been deferred four times earlier on the ground that they were yet to exhaust all the legal remedies.

A 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who came to be known as 'Nirbhaya' (fearless), was gang raped and savagely assaulted in a moving bus in south Delhi on December 16, 2012. She died after a fortnight.

Six people, including the four convicts and a juvenile, were named as accused. Ram Singh, the sixth accused, allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail days after the trial began in the case.

The juvenile was released in 2015 after spending three years in a correctional home.