New Delhi: The Delhi High Court Thursday said to a media house, desirous of interviewing the four death-row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case, to refrain from doing so as they have made a “mockery of the system”.
“They have made a mockery of the system. Please do not encourage them,” the court said.
The observation by Justice Navin Chawla came while hearing the plea of the media house for permission to interview the four convicts – Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan Kumar Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) – who are to be hanged March 20.
The media house, in its petition, has also challenged the Tihar Jail’s rejection of their application seeking permission to interview the four death row convicts. It also claimed the purpose behind the interview ‘was to have a deterrent effect on such crimes in the future’.
It said the application for permission was moved before the prison authorities on February 25 and it was denied February 27 by the Tihar Jail authorities. The court listed the matter for hearing March 11.
Earlier in the day after three postponements in six weeks, a Delhi court set March 20 as the fresh date for the execution of the four convicts in a case that has witnessed several twists and turns after they received the death sentence in 2013.
Agencies