Apex court stays Umesh Reddy's death penalty

Serial killer was sentenced to death by HC in 2009

A Bench of Justices B Sudershan Reddy and S S Nijjar passed its order staying the execution of death penalty and issued a notice to Karnataka government on the application filed by advocate Gurudatta Ankaolekar, appearing for Umesh, also known as B A Umesh.

Reddy, facing charges for other rapes and murders of several women, was sentenced to death by the Karnataka High Court on February 18, 2009.

The Court also decided to hear his plea for conducting open court proceedings on all review petitions of the death sentences.  All petitions seeking review of the judgment are heard by the judges in-chamber.  Ankaolekar mentioned the matter before the Bench and sought an interim stay on the apex Court’s order of February 1, upholding death sentence to Umesh on the ground that a review petition filed by him would come up for hearing on March 18. The writ petition filed by Umesh on February 17 sought a direction to the Registrar General for amending the Supreme Court Rules, 1966 in accordance with 187 th Law Commission report stating all death penalty matters be heard by a Bench comprising five or at least three judges.

 It also sought hearing on review petitions of all death sentences in open court so that oral arguments could be advanced on behalf on the convicts.

The apex  Court had on February 1 refused to show any leniency to the convict who had raped and smothered the victim after tying her hands behind.

“We are satisfied that the extreme depravity with which the offences were committed and the merciless manner in which death was inflicted on the victim brings it within the category of rarest of rare cases which merits the  death penalty,” the Court had said.

An ex-police constable, he had gained notoriety for his sex crimes, allegedly raping women after their murders.