Three death row convicts in the December 2012 gangrape and murder case moved the International Court of Justice appealing for an urgent hearing to prevent the execution. The three convicts- Vinay Sharma, Pawan Kumar Kumar Gupta, and Akshay Kumar Singh — moved the petition through their lawyer AP Singh, calling the execution of death warrants illegal.
Singh, in his petition also mentioned the outbreak of coronavirus in Delhi stating, “That is also important to pertain here that due to burst air quality in the world and COVID 2019 (coronavirus) also in Delhi NCR and other states are facing medical emergency…Functioning of courts from Monday 16.03.2020 shall be restricted to urgent matters with such member of benches as may be found appropriate.
Everyone is aware of what is happening in (the) world and also Delhi NCR in regard of water and air. Life is going short to short, then why death penalty?” the petition read.
The petition stated that the Tihar jail authorities were preparing the execution of the four death row convicts in a “hurried manner, such a hasty and secretive execution will be plainly illegal as above mentioned three convicts are yet to avail their legal remedy.”
The petition also stated that a petition before the Delhi Lieutenant Governor on the issue of suspension of sentence, a criminal case in Karkardooma court in which the court has asked for an action taken report from the police, a writ petition challenging rejection of mercy petition during elections before the Delhi High Court, two other criminal appeals, and a Special Leave petition were pending already.
The death row convicts requested the ICJ’s help to “prevent this barbaric and inhumane punishment from being inflicted upon convicts, the death penalty has no relevance in a progressive and modern international era.”
A Delhi court has fixed the date of execution on March 20 at 5:30 am. The death warrants have been stayed three times in the past pending the legal remedies of the four death row convicts.
On March 2, the court had deferred the execution of the four convicts till further order observing that the “convict must not meet his Creator with a grievance in his bosom that the courts of the country have not acted fairly in granting him an opportunity to exhaust his legal remedies…”
The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed December 16 gangrape convict Mukesh Singh’s plea to restore all his legal remedies ahead of his hanging on March 20. Mukesh claimed he was misled by his lawyers and sought the court’s directions to allow him to appeal against the death sentence.