The Indore bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court on Thursday allowed the appeal of the State Government against compassionate appointment of Mukesh Kumar.

The appeal filed under section 2(1) of the MP Uchcha Nyayalaya (Khand Nyayapeeth Ko Appeal) Adhiniyam, 2005 challenging the order dated 20.11.2019 passed in WP No.19338/2019, whereby the Single Judge by applying the policy applicable to the Work Charge Contingency Paid Employee directed consideration of the respondent Mukesh Kumar for compassionate appointment.

Archana Kher, Counsel for the appellant/State, submitted that before the writ court, the State could not file its reply. However, as per the documents on record namely service book and office order dated 26.11.2016, the father of original petitioner was not a contingency paid employee. Indeed, he was initially a daily rated employee, who was given status of “Permanent Employee” as per circular dated 07.10.2016. By taking this to the circular dated 07.10.2016 it is argued that this provision does not contain any right of consideration for compassionate appointment.

CS Sharma, Counsel for the respondent, placed reliance on the service book and on the order dated 26.11.2019 but contended that father of the respondent was a contingency paid employee.

A single-judge bench of Justice Shailendra Shukla observed, “A plain reading of order dated 20.11.2019 passed by the learned single judge shows that it has not been determined anywhere as to what was the status of father of the present respondent. Putting it differently, the learned single judge merely mentioned the date of death of father of the original petitioner, the date when application for compassionate appointment was rejected and then applied the circular dated 31.08.2016 which is admittedly applicable for dependents of Work Charge Contingency Paid Employees.”

In the view of the Court, it is to be determined as to what was the status of the original petitioner’s father and which policy will govern the question of grant of compassionate appointment. In absence of the said determination, the impugned order dated 20.11.2019 cannot be permitted to stand.

The bench has set aside the order dated 20.11.2019 and the matter is remanded back to the Writ Court with the direction to the State to file its response within three weeks.

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Mother of Mukesh Kumar, one of the four 2012 death-row Nirbhaya death-row convicts, on Tuesday approached the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) seeking a stay on the execution.

The four convicts are slated to be hanged on March 20 at 5:30 am.

Advocate AP Singh appealed the NHRC on behalf of Mukesh’s mother seeking a stay on March 20 death warrant. The basic premises of the contention is that Mukesh’s brother and another prime accused in the case Ram Singh was allegedly killed in the prison, and now he has a 70-year old mother and a 10-year-old son.

“The probe into the alleged suicide was biased. Yet the state government has not given any compensation to the family of the deceased. Mukesh is the only witness to the incident. If he is executed in a hurry, it will be a miscarriage of justice and a violation of the human rights,” Singh added.

Earlier in the morning, Mukesh Singh had moved a Delhi court seeking quashing of his death sentence on the pretext that he was not present in the national capital when the crime took place on December 16 that year.

In support of his contention, Mukesh had submitted that he was arrested from Rajasthan and brought to Delhi on December 17, 2012, a day after the incident.

Last week, three of the four convicts in the case approached the International Court of Justice (ICJ) seeking a stay on the execution of their death sentence, news agency ANI reported.

The three convicts who approached the ICJ are Akshay, Pawan and Vinay.

It had come shortly after the Supreme Court ordered the petition filed by convict Mukesh Singh seeking action against his former lawyer Vrinda Grover to be withdrawn.

Mukesh Singh had also appealed in the Supreme Court seeking restoration of all his legal remedies, alleging that his lawyers had misled him.

The plea moved through advocate ML Sharma, had asked for a CBI probe into alleged “criminal conspiracy” hatched by the Centre along with Delhi government and Vrinda Grover, who was amicus curiae in the case.

Another plea is pending before the Supreme Court challenging a Delhi High Court’s order which said death row convicts cannot be hanged separately, on March 20.

A 23-year-old paramedical student, who came to be known as “Nirbhaya”, was gang-raped and assaulted on the night of December 16, 2012, in a moving bus in South Delhi. She died a fortnight later at a hospital in Singapore.

Six people, including the four convicts, Ram Singh and a juvenile were named as accused.

The trial of the five men began in a special fast-track court in March 2013.

Ram Singh, the prime accused, allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself in Tihar jail days after the trial began. The juvenile, who was said to be the most brutal of the attackers, was put in a correctional home for three years.

The juvenile was released in 2015 and sent to an undisclosed location amid concerns over a threat to his life. He, when released, was 20 years old.

The trial of the four adults began in a special fast-track court in March 2013 and they were sentenced to death in September 2013 by the trial court.

The matter will come up before a bench of Justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bhushan and AS Bopanna.

Chief Justice SA Bobde on Monday said the petition filed by Mukesh should be listed for an urgent hearing in view of their execution scheduled on February 1 in Tihar jail in Delhi.

The hearing of the plea was fixed after Justice Bobde had directed that the plea be mentioned before the officer concerned for the date.

Mukesh had approached the apex court on Saturday seeking an urgent hearing against the rejection of his mercy petition by President Ram Nath Kovind.

Earlier on Monday, the bench headed by Justice Bobde and comprising Justices BR Gavai and Surya Kant said, “If somebody is going to be hanged on February 1, then it is the top priority, nothing can be more urgent than this.”

The warrant for execution of the death sentence has been scheduled for February 1 at 6 am by a Delhi court on January 17 after the rejection of the mercy plea of Mukesh by the President a day earlier.

The Supreme Court had rejected curative petitions of two of the convicts–Mukesh and Vinay Kumar, saying that no case was made out. Mukesh then moved the mercy plea.

On December 16, 2012, a paramedical student was gang-raped in a moving bus by six men in Delhi’s Munirka area. The student died at a Singapore hospital where she was airlifted for treatment. This incident triggered enormous public furore and media coverage demanding justice for the victim.

One of them, the key accused, Ram Singh, had allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail during the pendency of the case, while the sixth was a minor at the time of the commission of the crime and was let out after serving a three-year remand in a juvenile justice home

A Delhi court on Thursday directed the Tihar jail authorities to file the status report by Friday by about the status of scheduled execution of convicts in the 2012 gang-rape and murder case. of the four convicts in the Nirbhaya rape-murder case.

The Tis Hazari court judge said, “I am not reviewing my order to pass a death warrant. There will be a stay on the execution of the death warrant since a mercy plea is there. Jail authorities just have to give me this report saying we will not hang them on January 22.”

“The application was filed seeking setting aside of the order of execution warrants.” said advocate Vrinda Grover while reading the application.

“No emotion can overtake the law of the land. The Right to seek mercy is a constitutional right and not at the whims of the executive” she added.

The Delhi government had earlier rejected the mercy plea of Mukesh. The mercy plea was then sent to the Ministry of Home Affairs via Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, who accepted the recommendation of the Delhi government.

The convicts, Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Singh and Pawan Gupta, were to be hanged at 7 am on January 22.

The Delhi High Court yesterday refused to entertain a petition by Mukesh Kumar, one of the four death-row convicts in the Nirbhaya case, challenging a sessions court order fixing the date of his hanging in Tihar jail on January 22, 2020. But the city government said he could not be executed since his mercy plea is pending.

Under the Constitution of India (Article 72), the President of India can grant a pardon or reduce the sentence of a convicted person, particularly in cases involving capital punishment.

Lawyer Seema Kushwaha, appearing for Nirbhaya’s parents argued that the mercy petition is not pending before the President of India. “It has only been filed. We don’t know if it has been sent to the President yet,” she said and added that the hanging cannot be stayed over this petition.

Above: Self-styled godman Rampal (centre). Photo: UNI

A day after superstar godman Gurmeet Ram Rahim was sent to 20 years in prison for raping two of his ‘sevikas’ at his Panchkula Dera Sacha Sauda, another godman, from Barwala and holed up in jail from 2014, was acquitted by a Hisar (Haryana) court. He was acquitted in two cases pertaining to obstruction of government officers and rioting.

This self-styled ‘spiritual guru’ Rampal was off the hook in this charge on Tuesday (August 29), but a case of murder and another of attempted murder still hang on him, though he had received bail on both counts earlier (2008). He had, though, failed to make court appearances in these cases, following a 22-month jail term. Having refused to go to court, the court issued arrest warrant against him, but arresting him was another issue.

In 2014, at his 12-acre ashram Satlok, Rampal Dass stayed holed up inside as thousands of his followers, wielding stones and clubs, fought off a huge police and paramilitary offensive. This was done to prevent arrest.  The stand-off lasted for a week and six died before Rampal was taken in, along with many of his followers.

The impasse and deaths resulting from them led to a new spate of cases. The list of cases against him now range from murder, attempted murder, sedition, rioting and illegal detention. It is in the rioting and other such cases that the 67-year-old has been acquitted.

The attempted murder and murder cases rose from 2006 when he objected to the core text of Arya Samaj, calling certain parts “impractical and anti-social”. In a clash between the two sects on 12 July 2006, one person was shot dead and 29 others were injured.

The Rampal case verdict was supposed to have been delivered on August 24, but judicial magistrate Mukesh Kumar deferred it in the backdrop of the violence unleashed by Ram Rahim’s followers. In Haryana and in northern India, Rampal’s followers’ list is next to only Ram Rahim’s.

—India Legal Bureau