SC stays execution of two death row convicts in rape and murder case

The Apex Court on Monday stayed the execution of two death row prisoners, convicted for rape and murder of a minor and a young executive in separate incidents in Mumbai and Delhi.

A Bench comprising Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur, Justice A.K. Sikri and Justice R. Banumathi issued notices to the Delhi and Maharashtra Governments on appeals filed by Vinod alias Chhotu and Prakash Nishad, respectively.

The death sentence awarded to Nishad was confirmed by the Bombay High court in November, 2015, for raping, sodomising and then brutally murdering a six-year-old girl in Bhayander in 2010.

Confirming the verdict, a division Bench comprising Justice Vijaya Kapse-Tahilramani and Justice Ajay Gadkari had observed, “The pain and agony the accused must have caused to the deceased minor girl is beyond imagination and is the limit of viciousness. The motivation of the accused, the vulnerability of the victim girl, the barbaric and inhuman nature of the crime and the execution thereof persuade us to hold that this is a 'rarest of rare' case where the sentence of death is eminently desirable not only to deter others from committing such atrocious crimes and to prevent the accused from committing such acts for all times to come but also to give emphatic expression to society's abhorrence of such crime.”

Vinod’s death sentence was upheld by the Delhi High Court in August, 2014, along with two other convicts. The trio was condemned for abducting, gangraping and killing a 19-year-old girl who was working in Gurgaon's Cyber City. The victim’s mutilated body was found three days later and it was found that the convicts had poured acid into the victim's eyes and inserted a broken liquor bottle in her private parts.