The Supreme Court today i.e., December 13, 2018, dismissed a petition seeking direction for the immediate execution of the four men convicted in the 2012 Delhi gang-rape case.
A Bench comprising of Justice Madan B. Lokur and Justice Deepak Gupta was hearing a petition filed by Delhi based Advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava demanding “immediate execution” of the convicts in the case and also seeking to lay down of strict timelines for “speedy execution” of death row convicts in such cases.
The petitioner highlighting that more than four months have passed since the review petition filed by the convicts had been dismissed by the Supreme Court, contended that, “Such delay in execution of Death Penalty, in the considered view of the Petitioner, is acting as a bad precedent and not able to act as a deterrent to the Rapists resulting into increasing incidents of horrific offences of Rapes being reported on daily basis in our country.”
It was in September 2013, that the Additional Sessions Judge, Saket District Court Complex had found the accused in the case guilty under inter alia Sections 365-366, 376(2)(g), 377, 302 and 307 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, read with its Section 120B. The court had ordered them to be hanged till death.
This verdict was upheld by the Delhi High Court in March 2014 and thereafter, by the Supreme Court on July 9, 2018.
