The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed the Centre’s plea seeking modification of its 2014 ‘convict-centric’ guidelines in death penalty cases to make them ‘victim-centric’.

“We do not find any merit in this miscellaneous application (MA),” a three-Judge Bench, led by Justice Vikram Nath, said, dismissing the plea.

The Central Government had moved the application in January 2020, contending the existing guidelines were only “accused and convict-centric”.

On January 31, 2020, the top court had sought responses from various stakeholders, on whose petition the top court in 2014 laid down guidelines relating to the execution of death row convicts in the Shatrughan Chauhan case.

The top court had clarified in January 2020 that the issue of conviction and sentence connected with the Shatrug

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