Supreme Court: The 3-judge bench of Dipak Misra, R. Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan, JJ, while considering the affidavits filed to show the mitigating circumstances by the 4 accused persons in the appeal against the capital punishment in the Nirbhaya Case, noticed that the affidavit filed by the accused Mukesh does not cover many aspects, namely, socio-economic background, criminal antecedents, family particulars, personal habits, education, vocational skills, physical health and his conduct in the prison. It was argued by M.L. Sharma, appearing for Mukesh that the same has not been submitted by the Superintendent of Jail.
The Court, hence, stating that 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 as that would have thrown light on their conduct, directed that the report be filed by the Superintendent of Jail in a sealed cover in the Court on the next date of hearing i.e. 20.03.2017.
On 03.02.2017, the Court had agreed to hear the appeal against the capital punishment imposed on the accused persons in the Nirbhaya case and had noticed that there are two modes of dealing the matter at hand, one is to remand the matter and the other is to direct the accused persons to produce necessary data and advance the contention on the question of sentence. However, considering the nature of the case, the bench decided to go with the second mode. [Mukesh v. State for NCT of Delhi, 2017 SCC OnLine SC 213, order dated 06.03.2017]