Delhi court orders invesitgation in Owaisi hate speech case

New Delhi, Jan 15: 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.

The Supreme Court had on Tuesday dismissed the curative pleas of Mukesh and Vinay.

The mercy plea hearing began Wednesday morning and will continue in the afternoon.

New Delhi, Jun 18: For the 12th consecutive day, state-run oil marketing companies (OMCs) has increased the price of fuel on Thursday.

The price of petrol is increased by 53 paise a litre while that of diesel by 64 paise a litre.

Petrol and diesel will now cost Rs 77.81/litre and Rs 76.43/litre respectively in Delhi.

Notably, oil marketing companies have been adjusting retail rates in line with costs after an 82-day break from rate revision amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. These firms on June 7 restarted revising prices in line with costs.

New Delhi, Jan 24: The Election Commission of India on Friday told the Supreme Court that its 2018 direction asking poll candidates to declare their criminal antecedents in electronic and print media has not helped curb criminalisation of politics. The poll panel suggested that instead of asking candidates to declare criminal antecedents in the media, political parties should be asked not to give tickets to candidates with criminal background.

A bench of Justices R F Nariman and S Ravindra Bhat asked the ECI to come up with a framework within one week which can help curb criminalisation of politics in nation's interest.

The top court asked the petitioner BJP leader and advocate Ashiwini Upadhyay and the poll panel to sit together and come up with suggestions which would help him in curbing criminalisation of politics.

In September 2018, a five-judge Constitution bench had unanimously held that all candidates will have to declare their criminal antecedents to the Election Commission before contesting polls and had called for a wider publicity, through print and electronic media about antecedents of candidates.