Rajya Sabha chairman M Venkaiah Naidu on Tuesday lent his support to the Aam Aadmi Party lawmaker Sanjay Singh’s call for early execution of the four Delhi gang rape convicts and underscored that all institutions involved should fulfil their responsibilities and see to it that the verdict is implemented at the earliest.
“We cannot allow this sort of thing to go on in the country,” said Naidu.
The Rajya Sabha chairman said the convicts had been given available legal opportunity and they had exhausted all of them. Now they were delaying execution of the penalty decided by the courts on one excuse or the other.
The four men – gym instructor Vinay Sharma, bus cleaner Akshay Kumar Thakur, fruit-seller Pawan Gupta and unemployed Mukesh Singh – had been sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a 23-year old paramedic student inside a moving bus in December 2012. The gruesome crime had sparked nationwide protests over increasing sexual violence and forced the government to revisit laws.
Sanjay Singh, who referred to the public outrage and street protests that had followed the gang rape, said the men were convicted by a fast-track court but it had taken years to enforce the verdict. In the higher courts, Singh said, the case has only been getting deferred from one date to another.
They have no right to be alive, he said, urging the House to seek the intervention of the President and Supreme Court for speedy execution of the death sentence.
A Delhi court, after having twice issued the black warrant for their execution, declined to issue a third one last week, pointing that all the convicts were entitled to exhaust their legal options.
Over the weekend, the Delhi High Court held a special hearing at the request of the Centre which wanted orders to hang the convicts who had exhausted their appeals and mercy petition. It is yet to deliver its ruling.
The Centre’s second most-senior law officer Tushar Mehta, had argued that the convicts were trying to frustrate the mandate of the law in a deliberate calculated action
President Ram Nath Kovind has rejected the mercy petition of two convicts, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Thakur. The mercy plea of the third death row convict Akshay Thakur is pending. The fourth convict is yet to file the mercy petition.
Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar said the delay in hanging the convicts was a sensitive issue but blamed the AAP-led city government for the delay. The Supreme Court rejected the appeals of the convicts more than a year ago but Tihar jail delayed their execution. “This delay is due to the state government,” Javadekar said.
Rajya Sabha chairman Naidu, however, told members not to politicise the issue. “No politics… no discussion,” he told members.
