Hanging of Nirbhaya convicts: Delhi HC reserves verdict on Centre's plea

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Sunday reserved its verdict on the Centre's plea challenging stay on the execution of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case.

Justice Suresh Kait said it will pass an order after all the parties concluded their arguments.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the high court that there is a "deliberate, calculated and well thought of design" by the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case convicts to "frustrate" mandate of law by getting their execution delayed.

Mehta told Justice Kait that convict Pawan Gupta's move of not filing curative or mercy petition is deliberate, calculated inaction. "There is deliberate, calculated and well thought of design to frustrate mandate of law," Mehta told the HC.

Advocate A P Singh appeared for convicts Akshay Singh (31), Vinay Sharma (26) and Pawan gupta (25) opposing the Centre's plea to set aside stay on execution of death sentence.

He questioned Delhi High Court's 'haste' in the matter. "Why only in this case there is a hurry? Justice hurried is justice buried," he said.

Singh further said that the convicts belong to poor, rural and Dalit families, and hence, "cannot be made to bear brunt of ambiguity in the law".

Senior advocate Rebecca John, representing the fourth convict Mukesh Kumar (32), raised preliminary objection on the Centre's plea saying it was not maintainable.

She contended that the Centre was never a party in the case proceedings before the trial court and while the government was accusing the convict of delay, it has woken up just two days ago.

"It was the victim's parents who moved the trial court for issuance of death warrants against the convicts. At no point the central government or the state government approached the trial court to immediately issue death warrants," John contended.