Two possible reasons why Supreme Court could not postpone execution of death warrant for even 14 days :- 1)

1) Lawyers who woke up Supreme Court Judges at midnight may have good hope that court will extend time to execute death warrants by 14 days.

Because general law is : When Court fixes that something to be done in certain time, then court can extended if there are sufficient reasons to do so.

2) As per media reports :

A) One reason was that "Second Clemency petition has been rejected by President just now. Thereafter 14 days time should be given from now on.

This argument presuppose that any number of clemency petitions can be filed and After last clemency petition is rejected, 14 days should be given.

This argument did not stand.

Because there is no law that any number of clemency petitions can be filed after main clemency is rejected.

Secondly, If you accept this argument, and give 14 days, than another clemency petition can be filed after 10 days... And after its rejection another 14 days.....etc...so on..

The argument failed.

2) Second argument was, 14 days time should be given so that relatives can meet.

This argument failed because, the Supreme Court was told that relatives were already there and the warrant was issued 90 days ago... Ample time was already given.

So this argument also failed.

The Judges must have felt that same arguments are being repeated again and again and no plausible ground is made out to extend warrant by 14 days which could if done, indirectly  meant almost setting aside warrant, a prayer which was rejected in afternoon.  It was not possible for judges since no good reason was pointed out to them.

(This views are personal and based on media reports. I may be wrong)

Haresh Raichura
31/7/2015

Present Law Regarding Death Penalty in India ( 5 points)

1) Heinous crimes like murder, are punishable with punishment in jail for life or by death.

2) The section does not say when to give life imprisionment and when to give death. Therefore Supreme Court has laid down law and defined category of "Rarest of Rare" Crime, and has said that death sentence be given in Rarest of Rare crime. In all other cases of murders, life imprisonment. 

3) There is no fix definition of what is Rarest of Rare Crime. But in brief, such crimes are those which shock the conscience of society as a whole.

4) If trial court grants death sentence, then case is deeply examined by High Court. And then High Court judgement is examined by Supreme Court to eliminate chances of human error.

5) The President and The Governors have power to commute death penalty into life imprisonment. But they are also bound to follow some norms.

Haresh Raichura
29/7/2015

Know that In Supreme Court, whenever one of the two judges differs, the case is normally admitted and referred to other Bench

To those who are not familiar with Supreme Court, this may be a new thing.

Here, judges normally sit in benches of "Two" Judges. If one of the two judge disagrees about order to be passed, then normally matter is referred to Chief Justice to place matter before another 2 Judges  or 3 Judge Bench.

In meanwhile, if some stay is required, it is normally granted.

Haresh Raichura
28/7/2015