NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court today directed Delhi's Tihar Jail superintendent to file a report on the conduct of the four death row convicts of the sensational December 16, 2012 gangrape and murder case in the prison.
"In our considered opinion, the superintendent of jail should have filed the report with regard to the conduct of the accused persons since they are in custody for almost four
years. That would have thrown light on their conduct.
"Let the report with regard to their conduct be filed by the Superintendent of Jail in a sealed cover in the Court on the next date of hearing," a bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra said.
The bench, also comprising Justices R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan, noted that the counsel representing the four convicts -- Mukesh, Pawan, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Kumar Singh -- have filed their affidavits detailing the mitigating circumstances in their favour.
However, senior advocate Raju Ramachandran, who has been appointed as amicus curiae to assist the court in the case, pointed out that the affidavit filed by Mukesh does not cover many aspects like socio-economic background, criminal antecedents, family particulars, personal habits, education, vocational skills, health and his conduct in the prison.
The counsel representing Mukesh told the bench that he would file an affidavit within a week detailing these aspects.
One of the defence counsel told the apex court that the jail superintendent was asked to file a report with regard to the conduct of these convicts while they were in custody, but it has not been filed by him.
Senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, appearing for the state, contended that he has filed the affidavit and it contained the report of the jail superintendent.
The bench has listed the matter for further hearing on March 20 and asked the jail superintendent to file the report before it on that day.
The apex court had on February 3 said it would hear afresh the aspect of awarding death penalty to the four convicts in the case.
The bench had prima facie agreed with the contention of Ramachandran that provision of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), relating to sentencing of convicts, has not been followed in letter and spirit by the trial court in the case.
A 23-year-old paramedic was brutally assaulted and gangraped by six persons in a moving bus in south Delhi and thrown out of the vehicle with her male friend on the night of December 16, 2012. She had died in a Singapore hospital on December 29 that year.
The trial court had awarded death penalty to convicts, Mukesh, Pawan, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Kumar Singh. The fifth
and one of the key accused, Ram Singh, had allegedly committed suicide inside jail during the trial.
Besides senior advocate Ramachandran, another senior lawyer Sanjay Hegde is also assisting the court as amicus curiae in the matter.
While Ramachandran is assisting the court in appeals of convicts Mukesh and Pawan, Hegde is assisting in appeals of convicts, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Kumar Singh.
These four convicts had approached the apex court against the Delhi High Court's March 13, 2014 verdict which had said that their offence fell in the rarest of rare category and had upheld the death sentence awarded to them by the trial court.
The prime accused, Ram Singh, was found dead in a cell in Tihar Jail in March 2013 and proceedings against him were abated.