Heena Sharma Blog

The execution of convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case will be the first time post Independence that four men are hanged to death together. Sixteen convicts have been executed in the country in the past three decades, including Yakub Memon, Afzal Guru and Ajmal Kasab. On February 9, 2013, Afzal Guru was executed in Tihar jail. Guru was convicted in the 2001 Parliament attack. No execution has taken place in Tihar since Guru. In 1989, former prime minister Indira Gandhi's assassin Satwant Singh and co-conspirator Kehar Singh were hanged in Tihar Jail. There has also been a dual hanging in the past, when Ranga and Billa were hanged together after they were convicted in the kidnapping and murder of siblings Geeta and Sanjay Chopra. Jasbir Singh alias Billa and Kuljeet Singh also known as Ranga Khus were hanged at Tihar Jail on 31 January 1982. Read More

Supreme Court will on Monday hear the curative petition filed by one of the four death row convicts, Pawan Kumar Gupta, seeking commutation of his death penalty to life imprisonment in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case . Gupta had on Friday filed a curative petition before the apex court seeking commutation of his death sentence to life imprisonment. He is the fourth convict in the case to file a curative petition. The Supreme Court has already rejected the curative petitions of the remaining three. This comes as a fresh death warrant has been issued for the four convicts -- Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh Singh, which orders their hanging at 6 am on March 3 at Delhi's Tihar Jail. Read More

The Supreme Court on Tuesday will hear a petition, filed by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), seeking a direction to execute the death row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case separately. A three-judge bench, headed by Justice R Banumathi and also comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan and Navin Sinha, will hear the plea today. The Centre moved the apex court after the Delhi High Court had rejected its petition. Delhi High Court had on February 5, stated that that death warrant of all convicts in the Nirbhaya case should be executed together. The High Court had observed that Delhi prison rules do not state whether when the mercy petition of one convict is pending, the execution of the other convicts can take place and from the trial court to Supreme Court all convicts have been held by a common order and a common judgment. Read More

The Supreme Court will hear at 12.45 pm on Monday the plea of a death row convict in the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case against a Delhi High Court order dismissing his claim that he was a juvenile when the crime was committed. Pawan Kumar Gupta's plea will be heard by a bench of Justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bushan and A S Bopanna. Gupta had moved the apex court on Friday. He has also sought a direction restraining the authorities from executing the death penalty, scheduled for February 1. A Delhi court on Friday issued fresh death warrants for February 1 against the four convicts -- Vinay Sharma, Mukesh Kumar, Akshay Kumar Singh and Pawan -- in the case. A 23-year-old paramedic student, referred to as Nirbhaya, was gangraped 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. Read More

President Ram Nath Kovind on Friday rejected the mercy plea of Mukesh Singh, one of the four men convicted in the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case , sources said. The rejection came soon after the Union Home Ministry forwarded the petition to the president on Friday morning. "It's a very good thing. Our hopes have gone up after the disheartening news that the execution might be delayed," the young woman's father told PTI as news came in of the rejection. Mukesh had filed his mercy petition two days ago. The four convicts -- Mukesh (32), Vinay Sharma (26), Akshay Kumar Singh (31) and Pawan Gupta (25) -- were to be hanged on January 22 at 7 am in Tihar Jail, a Delhi court had announced on January 7 while issuing their death warrants. However, the Delhi government informed the high court during a hearing that the execution of the convicts will not take place on the day as a mercy plea had been filed by Mukesh. Read More

The Delhi government Wednesday told the high court that execution of the death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case will not take place on January 22 as a mercy plea has been filed by one of them. The four convicts -- Vinay Sharma (26), Mukesh Kumar (32), Akshay Kumar Singh (31) and Pawan Gupta (25) -- are to be hanged on January 22 at 7 am in Tihar jail. A Delhi court had issued their death warrants on January 7. Justices Manmohan and Sangita Dhingra Sehgal were told by the Delhi government and the Centre that the petition filed by convict Mukesh, challenging his death warrant, was premature. The Delhi government and the prison authorities informed the court that under the rules, it will have to wait for the mercy plea to be decided before executing the death warrant. They also said that none of the four convicts can be executed on January 22 unless the present mercy plea is decided. Read More

The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed the curative petitions filed by two of the four death row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case . A five-judge bench headed by Justice N V Ramana rejected the curative petitions filed by Vinay Sharma (26) and Mukesh Kumar (32). The proceedings were conducted in-chamber.