Views of victim's family on grant or denial of pardon to convicts have no legal value: Experts

The views of victim's family on whether to forgive or not the convicts in a criminal offence like the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case have no "legal value" as such offences are against the State, said legal experts on Saturday. Senior advocates Rakesh Dwivedi and Vikas Singh said the views of family members of a victim in a criminal case on grant or denial of pardon to convicts cannot be considered in a court of law.

"No. No. They (views of family member ) have no value actually and the courts have to go by the law. The prosecution is always done by the State and that is why it is always the State versus so and so. The criminal offence is always against the State," Dwivedi said. Dwivedi said moreover "the fact is that the complainant (Nirbhaya's mother) is not agreeing to Indira Jaising's view that she should pardon the convicts like Sonia Gandhi".

Singh, a former Supreme Court Bar Association President, said, "Such views of the family members have no value. Absolutely no legal value. It cannot be used in any court of law." He, however, said the convicts may use the favourable views, if any, in their mercy pleas before the president.

Senior advocate Jaising has urged Nirbhaya's mother to "follow the example" of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and pardon the four death-row convicts, who are scheduled to be hanged on February 1, in the 2012 gangrape and murder case. A Delhi court on Friday issued fresh death warrants for February 1 against the four — Vinay Sharma (26), Mukesh Kumar (32), Akshay Kumar Singh (31) and Pawan (25).

A 23-year-old paramedic student, referred to as Nirbhaya, was gang raped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012, in a moving bus in south Delhi by six persons before she was thrown out on the road. She died on December 29, 2012, at a hospital in Singapore.

The prime accused in the case, Ram Singh, committed suicide by hanging himself in Tihar Jail in March 2013, and the sixth convict was a juvenile.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)