The Punjab and Haryana High Court today stayed till April 10 the execution of Dharampal, a rape convict who later murdered the victim and four members of her family while out on parole in 1993.
Dharampal was set to be hanged on April 15 and had been brought from Rohtak jail where he was lodged to Ambala for the execution, Haryana DGP (Prisons) Sharad Kumar had said earlier today.
The Division bench of Justice A K Mittal and Justice G S Sandhawalia took up the petition for conversion of the death sentence into life imprisonment.
Among the grounds taken in the petition, filed before the High Court was that the Supreme Court was already "seized of the matter".
The court ordered stay on the hanging till April 10 while hearing a petition filed by NGO Lawyers for Human Rights International soon after its filing in view of the urgency involved in the matter.
The counsel Navkiran Singh told the Court that till the morning of April 5, the convict was lodged in Rohtak jail after which he has been shifted to Ambala Jail, "where preparations were being made for executing his death sentence..."
He drew parallel between Dharampal and Davinderpal Singh Bhullar's case, contending that the Apex Court was "seized of the matter pertaining to all the death sentence convicts, whose mercy petitions were pending with the President for long".
Bhullar has been given the death sentence in connection with the explosions outside the Youth Congress office in Delhi in 1993.
The bench also issued notice to Haryana government and asked it reply to the notice by April 10.
