New Delhi: A Delhi court Thursday appointed an advocate to represent Pawan Gupta, one of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case, after he refused to take a lawyer offered by DLSA as legal aid.
Additional Session Judge Dharmender Rana then adjourned for Monday the hearing on the pleas seeking fresh death warrants against the convicts.
The court had Wednesday offered a counsel to Gupta and expressed displeasure over the delay in the process from his side. Gupta said he had removed his earlier lawyer and would need time to engage a new one. The District Legal Services Authority (DLSA) had provided Gupta’s father with a list of its empanelled advocates to choose from.
Tihar Jail authorities informed the court Thursday that he refused to take a lawyer offered by DLSA.
Gupta is the only one among the four convicts who has not yet filed a curative petition – the last legal remedy available to a person, which is decided in-chamber. He also has the option of filing a mercy plea.
The court was hearing applications moved by Nirbhaya’s parents and the Delhi government, seeking fresh death warrants for the four convicts after the Supreme Court granted liberty to the authorities to approach the trial court for issuance of fresh date for the execution of these convicts.
The trial court had Wednesday expressed anguish over the delay in hearing of the applications moved by Nirbhaya’s parents and the Delhi government. However, it had said that a condemned convict is entitled to legal aid till his last breath.
“‘Fiat justitia ruat caelum (let the justice be done though the heavens fall)’. This court is of the considered opinion that any condemned convict is entitled for legal aid till his last breath. Granting the prayer made in the applications under consideration without hearing the counsel for convict would render further hearings in the instant matter an ornamental and superfluous exercise,” the judge had said.
PTI
