NE LEGAL BUREAU
NEW DELHI, MARCH 2
The Supreme Court has dismissed the curative petition filed by one of the convicts in the Nirbhaya gang rape case, challenging the May 2017 Supreme Court verdict confirming his conviction and death sentence on Monday.
He was the last among the four convicts to file a curative petition in the case. He can now file his mercy petition before President Ram Nath Kovind. The three other convicts have already exhausted all their legal remedies.
“We have gone through the curative petition and the relevant documents. In our opinion, no case is made out within the parametres indicated in the decision of this court in Rupa Ashok Hurra vs. Ashok Hurra”, the court said in its order.
A curative petition is the last judicial resort available for redressal of grievances. It is a remedy established by the Supreme Court through its judgment in Rupa Asok Hurra v Ashok Hurra and is decided by the judges in-chamber.
The four convicts are scheduled to be executed on March 3. However, since Gupta is yet to file his mercy petition, there is a chance that the hanging might be postponed, if the President taking time to take decision.
This is because, as per the existing practice, all convicts in a given case are executed simultaneously and not separately. Hence, even if one of the convicts has not exhausted a legal remedy available to him, the hanging of all the four convicts gets deferred.
Additional Sessions Judge, Patiala House had on January 7, 2020, issued the death warrant against four convicts and scheduled their execution on January 22. The execution date was postponed twice, first to February 1 and then to March 3 due to the convicts not having exhausted their remedies.
The way the petitions are being filed by the convicts has come under criticism from several experts and the Union government, on January 22, filed an application in Supreme Court seeking changes in the manner in which the remedies can be exercised by imposing deadline for death row convicts to file curative and mercy petitions.
The central government had also moved the Delhi high court seeking permission to hang those convicts who have exhausted all their legal remedies separately.
The Centre argued that the law does not mandate that all death row convicts in a given case should be executed simultaneously.
The Delhi high court had turned down the plea citing a Supreme Court verdict in an “unfortunate” case where after one convict was executed, the co-accused’s death sentence was commuted to life. The appeal against the Delhi high court verdict is pending before the Supreme Court.
