Court asks Tihar jail authorities to submit status report in Nirbhaya Rape Case

Directing the Tihar jail Superintendent to appear in person on July 19, a Delhi court on Tuesday issued a notice to the jail authorities to submit a status report on the convicts in the Nirbhaya rape and murder case.

Additional Sessions Judge Pawan Kumar Jain, acting on the application filed by Nirbhaya's parents seeking expeditious execution of the rape convicts, asked the jail authorities to apprise it of the various legal remedies that all the four convicts have availed of and on those which are pending. Speaking to the media, Nirbhaya's mother Asha Devi said: "For some reason, the case is being stretched. I request the Central and state government to expedite the process and execute the convicts."

The Supreme Court had on December 12, 2018, dismissed the PIL filed by a lawyer, Alakh Alok Srivastava, seeking a direction to the Centre to execute the death penalty awarded to four convicts--Mukesh, Pawan, Vinay and Akshay--in the sensational Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case. Following this, in February this year, Nirbhaya's parents moved an application in the court seeking the procedure to hang all four convicts in the case to be fast-tracked.

In 2012, the 23-year-old paramedic student was gang-raped on December 16 inside a running bus in South Delhi by six persons. She was physically assaulted and was thrown out on the road along with her male friend. She succumbed to injuries at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore on December 29, where she was airlifted for medical treatment. The incident led to a huge public outcry, prompting the government to overhaul anti-rape laws.

Out of the six rapists, one of the accused, Ram Singh, committed suicide by hanging himself in the prison, while another, a juvenile served the maximum punishment of three years in a reform home and was set free in 2015. In 2013, the four adult defendants were convicted and given death sentence by a trial court, which was confirmed by the Delhi High Court in March 2014. The Supreme Court, in 2017, upheld the Delhi High Court's verdict.

The petition, filed by Alakh Alok Srivastava, stated that a delay in execution of death penalty "apparently gives an impression in the minds of the rapists that they would also be harmless if they commit such heinous crimes". The plea had also sought guidelines to prescribe strict timelines for speedy execution of death row convicts in rape-cum-murder cases. It further said that the fate of the accused must be decided within a period of eight months from the lower court to the apex court. In July 2018, the apex court had dismissed the pleas filed by Mukesh, Pawan, and Vinay seeking review of the SC verdict which had upheld the judgments of the Delhi High Court and the lower court awarding death punishment to them. 

(With inputs from agencies.)