Case Title: Pawan Kumar Gupta V. State of NCT of Delhi
The Nirbhaya case defendants knocked on the Supreme Court's doors hours before their planned execution in the hopes of last-minute court intervention to spare their lives.
But after a special sitting that started at roughly 2.45 AM, the bench made up of Justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bhushan, and AS Bopanna denied the relief, negating the inmates' final ditch effort. At around 3.30 AM, the bench issued a decision rejecting the writ petition Pawan Kumar Gupta filed to challenge the President's denial of his request for compassion.
The Court declared that there was very little room for judicial scrutiny of the President's use of his prerogative of mercy. The bench determined that the petition had no legal basis and was without merit.
A P Singh, the attorney for the petitioner, was repeating arguments made at earlier levels that had already been rejected by courts, according to Solicitor General Tushar Mehta. The SG argued that at this point, the well-founded conclusions reached by the Courts regarding the merits of the case cannot be revisited. Following the petition's denial, AP Singh made one last appeal to allow the relatives of the defendants to say goodbye to them before their execution. The bench stated that as long as the jail handbook approved it, it had no objections.
The Solicitor General countered that such a last-minute meeting was prohibited by the prison handbook. The Solicitor General rejected Akshay's request for his 8-year-old son to meet him as well, claiming that it would leave a "terrible scar" on the boy's mind.
The Delhi High Court dismissed the revision application filed by the prisoners contesting the trial court's decision to refuse to delay the execution. The argument put out was that the President was still considering the second mercy appeal submitted by prisoner Akshay Singh.
An appeal for the International Court of Justice to intervene in the execution process had also been launched, according to the inmates' attorney, AP Singh. The Election Commission of India received a petition on the alleged politicization of the case.
The trial court had stated that the existence of any future mercy petition was not a basis for postponing execution, citing the Supreme Court's ruling in the Yakub Memon case from 2015.
Regarding the claim that inmate Pawan has not yet appealed the denial of his mercy request, the trial court noted that the Delhi High Court had mandated that the convicts must exhaust all available legal options within seven days.
"The condemned convict cannot be permitted to frustrate the course of law by simply opting to remain indolent…”
"Condemned criminal Pawan has chosen not to use all of his legal options, blatantly defying the Hon'ble Delhi High Court's instructions. One must first learn to respect the law before seeking its protection. Therefore, I cannot justify delaying the execution of the death sentence just because the convict Pawan chose not to pursue his legal options," ASJ Dharmender Rana wrote in the ruling.
The bench led by Justice Manmohan stated that they did not identify any errors in the trial court's ruling during the hearing. The execution had already been delayed three times from its original date of January 22.