The department is allset to move the Bombay High Court for an early hearing.
The home department is set to move the Bombay High Court to seek an early hearing in the Gavit sisters execution plea. The sisters – Seema Gavit and Renuka Shinde – were sentenced to death by Supreme Court for abducting and killing 13 children. Despite the president giving it a go ahead in July 2014, their execution was stayed on the plea that there had been a long delay on the part of the government in carrying out the execution orders.
Sources in the department, however, stated that the department alone cannot be blamed for the delay. "The judicial process is also slow due to heavy pendency. In a case where delay in justice was being contested, the high court has given the next date of hearing on December 2016. The last hearing took place in January this year," said a senior officer.
The home department was also of the view that the president rejected the mercy plea after considering all the facts. "The president's decision cannot be challenged under Article 72 of the Constitution. Also, the delay in justice was mentioned in the plea moved before the president as well and he rejected that point. As per Constitution, the same part cannot be debated in the court," the officer added.
A Kolhapur sessions court had awarded death penalty to the sisters in 2001 for abducting and killing 13 children, aged one to four. In the next 14 years, their appeals were turned down and the death penalty was upheld by all subsequent authorities, including the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court. The final blow came in April 2014, when their mercy petition was rejected by the president.
Still hopeful for respite, the duo filed a fresh petition before the Bombay High Court in August 2014, citing "delay in execution" as the latest ground. Since then, there has been a stay on their execution and the case, as expected, is moving at a snail's pace.
The sisters are not alone. In the last three years till July 2015, president Pranab Mukherjee has rejected mercy pleas of 24 convicts, of whom only three — Yakub Memon, Mohammad Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru — have been hanged till date. The rest have managed to procure stay on their hanging by moving fresh petitions before the respective high courts, primarily on the grounds of prolonged procedural delays in execution. All convicts facing death sentences in Maharashtra are moved to Yerwada jail in Pune or the Nagpur jail, as these are the only two prisons in the state to have gallows.
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 "Seema Gavit (left) and Renuka Shinde.")
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