The Supreme Court today stayed the execution of death sentence awarded to Maganlal Barela, who was scheduled to be hanged this morning for beheading his five daughters in Sehore district of Madhya Pradesh, till further orders.
A bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam said that the stay on the execution of death sentence will continue till further orders and tagged his petition along with pleas of other condemned prisoners who had also sought quashing of capital punishment on various grounds.
The stay was granted on Barela's execution after members of the People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) approached the apex court.
The PUDR activists had gone to the residence of the Chief Justice yesterday and the CJI had around midnight last night stayed the execution for a day. The order was immediately conveyed to jail authorities in Jabalpur.
Barela was found guilty of beheading his daughters Leela (6), Savita (5), Arti (4), Phool Kanwar (2) and Jamuna (1), to death with an axe following a dispute over property with his two wives on June 11, 2010 in Sehora district of Madhya Pradesh. Police had charged him under Section 302 (murder) of the IPC.
He was to be executed at central jail in Jabalpur this morning after the trial court in Sehore had issued his "black warrant".
The trial court had awarded capital punishment to Barela on February 3, 2011.
President Pranab Mukherjee had rejected Barela's plea for clemency on July 22, 2013 after dismissal of his pleas for converting capital punishment into life imprisonment by Madhya Pradesh High Court (Jabalpur bench) on February 3, 2011 and the Supreme Court on January 9, 2012.
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