Petition in SC dismissed, Mukesh Singh out of legal treatment against Feb 1 execution

A petition
filed by 2012 Delhi gang rape convict Mukesh Singh against the presidential
order rejecting his mercy plea has been rejected by the Supreme Court on
Wednesday.

A
three-judge bench led by Justice R Banumathi ruled that Mukesh Singh’s argument
that the government did not produce all relevant records before the President
did not hold water.

The bench
also kept aside Mukesh Singh’s references to the suffering and humiliation that
he claimed to have faced in prison. “Suffering in the prison cannot be ground
for challenging mercy powers exercised by the President,” the bench, also
comprising justices Ashok Bhushan and AS Bopanna, said.

A third
argument centered around the speed at which the mercy petition was decided was
also turned down. Between the Delhi government and the Home Ministry, the
government had completed all the procedures relating to the rejection of Mukesh
Singh within four days. It was a record, the fastest rejection of a mercy
petition ever.

Rebutting
Mukesh Singh’s in the top court on Tuesday, the government’s second most-senior
law officer Tushar Mehta had pointed to the many judgments that had criticised
delays in decisions on mercy petitions. It is the delay that has a dehumanising
effect, Mehta said.

Mukesh Singh
and his three other accomplices, who were convicted for the gang rape and
murder of a 23-year-old paramedic student in a moving bus in Delhi in 2012,
have been sentenced to death. A Delhi court has ordered the four of them to be
executed on February 1.