To cover up his lover's murder, man killed 9 people, threw bodies into well

New Delhi, Jan 14: The curative petitions of Vinay Sharma and Mukesh, who were sentenced to death in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case, was on Tuesday rejected by a five-judge Supreme Court Bench led by Justice N.V. Ramana.

In a three-page order, the Bench concluded, after an in chamber consideration that began about 1.45 p.m., that there was no merit in their pleas to spare them from the gallows.

“We have gone through the curative petitions and relevant documents. In our opinion, no case is made out within the parameters indicated in the decision of this Court in Rupa Ashok Hurra versus Ashok Hurra. Hence, the curative petitions are dismissed,” the court held.

Curative is a rare remedy devised by a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in its judgment in the Rupa Ashok Hurra case in 2002. A party can take only two limited grounds in a curative petition - one, he was not heard by the court before the adverse judgment was passed, and two, the judge was biased. A curative plea, which follows the dismissal of review petition, is the last legal avenue open for convicts in the Supreme Court. Sharma was the first among the four convicts to file a curative.

The Bench also rejected their pleas to stay the execution of their death sentence and for oral hearing in open court.

Besides Justice Ramana, the Bench comprised Arun Mishra, Rohinton Nariman, R. Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan.

Curative petitions were filed in the Supreme Court by both convicts on January 9. The petitions had come just days after a Delhi sessions court schedulled the execution of all the four convicts in Tihar jail on January 22.

Sharma and Mukesh, in separate curative petitions, argued that there was a “sea change” in the death penalty jurisprudence since their convictions. Carrying out the death sentence on such changed circumstances would be a “gross miscarriage of justice”.

In his plea, Sharma said the Court had commuted the death penalty in several rape and murder cases since 2017, when it first confirmed the death penalty to the Nirbhaya convicts.

“fter the pronouncement of judgment in 2017, there have been as many as 17 cases involving rape and murder in which various three-judge Benches of the Supreme Court have commuted the sentence of death,” the petition contended.

The Supreme Court recently dismissed a review petition filed by Akshay Singh, another of the four four condemned men, to review its May 5, 2017 judgment confirming the death penalty. It also refused his plea to grant him three weeks' time to file a mercy petition before the President of India.

A Bench led by Justice R. Banumathi had said it was open for the Nirbhaya case convicts to avail whatever time the law prescribes for the purpose of filing a mercy plea.

Akshay (33), Mukesh (30), Pawan Gupta (23) and Sharma (24) had brutally gang-raped a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012. She died of her injuries a few days later.

The case shocked the nation and led to the tightening of anti-rape laws. Rape, especially gang rape, is now a capital crime.

One of the accused in the case, Ram Singh, allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar jail. A juvenile, who was among the accused, was convicted by a juvenile justice board. He was released from a reformation home after serving a three-year term.

New Delhi, Jan 31: Nirbhaya's mother Asha Devi on Friday said she will continue her fight till the convicts in the 2012 gangrape and murder case are hanged, shortly after a Delhi court postponed the execution of death warrants till further order.

Devi told reporters her "hopes are dashed" but she will continue her fight.

"These convicts have no right to live. We keep getting disappointed by the system. I will continue my fight till the convicts are hanged," she said.

A Delhi court postponed the execution of death warrants of the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case till further order.

Additional sessions judge Dharmender Rana passed the order on a plea by the convicts seeking a stay on their execution on Saturday, February 1.

Devi said because of the loopholes in law the "criminals' lawyers had the audacity to challenge me in court that they will not be hanged".

The black warrants for execution of the death sentence against Pawan Gupta, Vinay Kumar Sharma, Akshay Kumar and Mukesh Kumar Singh, were issued on January 17.

A 23-year-old physiotherapy intern who came to be known as "Nirbhaya" (the fearless one) was gangraped and savagely assaulted on the night of December 16, 2012, in a moving bus in South Delhi. She died of her injuries a fortnight later in a Singapore hospital.

Dhaka, Jan 3: Bangladesh's paramilitary force chief said on Thursday that a total of 445 Bangladeshi nationals returned from India in last two months following the publication of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) by the Indian government.

Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) Director General Maj Gen Md Shafeenul Islam disclosed the figure during a press briefing here.

"About 1,000 people were arrested in 2019 for illegal border crossings from India to Bangladesh, with 445 of them returning home in November and December," he said.

After verifying their identities through local representatives, BGB came to know that all the intruders are Bangladeshis, Islam said, adding that 253 cases were lodged against them for illegal trespass, while initial investigations found that at least three of them were human traffickers.

The BGB Director said the trespassing did not create any tension between the border forces of Bangladesh and India.

Last week, Islam visited India where he said that the creation of the NRC is completely an "internal affair" of India and the cooperation between the border guarding forces of the two countries is very good.

He said the BGB will continue to do its work of preventing illegal border crossings as per its mandate.

A BGB delegation, led by Islam, was on a bilateral visit to India to hold DG-level border talks with its counterparts, the Border Security Force (BSF).

The talks took place from December 26-29, during which a host of issues related to cross-border smuggling and activities of criminals and others along the 4,096-km-long front were discussed.

Responding to a question, Islam said, "No discussion was held at the conference over the (NRC) issue".

He said during the five-day talks held in New Delhi, the BGB demanded that the BSF should take effective steps to prevent killings of Bangladeshis on frontiers as casualty figures sharply rose in 2019.

"The number of border killings in 2019 was highest in the last four years. As per our calculation, the number of such unexpected deaths was 35," the BGB chief said.

However, the BSF estimate of the casualty figure is much lower than our calculation, he said.

Islam said the BSF is following the policy of maintaining maximum restraint and minimal use of force even after being attacked by "armed border offenders".

A statement issued by the BSF last month in New Delhi after the conclusion of the DG-level talks said, "On the concern of the BGB regarding the death of Bangladeshi nationals on borders, it was informed to them that a non-lethal weapon policy is strictly followed by BSF personnel on borders.

"Firing is resorted to only in self-defence, when BSF patrols are gheraoed and attacked by ‘dah’ (a sharp-edged weapon) etc. It was specified that the BSF does not discriminate between criminals based on nationality," it said.