A three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Justice R Bhanumathi on Tuesday will hear the petition of the Union home ministry asking for separate executions of the four death row convicts in the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder case.
The Centre moved the top court after the Delhi High Court rejected its petition on February 5.
The High Court had stated that the death warrant of all convicts in the case should be executed together and cannot be hanged separately.
The High Court had observed that under Delhi prison rules do not state whether when the mercy petition of one convict is pending, the execution of the other convicts can take place and from the trial court to Supreme Court all convicts have been held by a common order and a common judgment.
On Saturday, a Delhi court on had dismissed the plea of one of the convicts – Vinay Sharma – seeking treatment at the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS) for ‘mental illness.’
Vinay’s counsel, AP Singh, had told the court last week that his client suffers from mental illness, schizophrenia and has failed to recognise his counsel and family.
On 17 February, the court had issued a new death warrant against Vinay and the three other convicts – Mukesh Kumar Singh, Pawan Gupta and Akshay Thakur and ordered their hanging at 6 am on March 3. This is the third time a new death warrant has been issued against the four convicts.
Tihar Jail authorities in Delhi have written to all the four convicts about their last meeting with families ahead of their March 3 hanging. The four men were convicted of raping a 23-year-old woman on the night of December 16, 2012 in a moving bus in South Delhi and throwing her and her friend out of it. She died a fortnight later of serious injuries at a Singapore hospital.
