The decision to carry out the execution at 4:30 am was taken at a meeting at the State secretariat presided over by West Bengal Jail Minister Biswanath Choudhury, IG Prisons Joydeb Chakraborty, told newsmen Tuesday.

He said Chatterjee’s family has been informed about the date of the execution and as per the rules family members could be present during the execution at the discretion of the Jail Superintendent.

Chatterjee has been lodged in the Alipur Jail for nearly 14 years since his arrest a few months after the rape and murder of the schoolgirl, Hetal Parekh, at her residence in a housing colony in Bhowanipur area of the metropolis in 1990.

Chatterjee, whose mercy plea was rejected by the President on August 4, was earlier scheduled to be hanged on June 25.

The hanging was, however, put off after his family moved a petition in the Supreme Court and also filed a mercy plea with the President.

Chatterjee’s lawyer Joymalya Bagchi, said the petition would be filed in the apex court tomorrow under Article 32 of the Constitution.

Chatterjee’s lawyer said the main argument in the petition would be the 10-year delay in executing the death sentence and also the President was not provided with all the details of the case.

Chatterjee, who had earlier been informed about the rejection of his mercy plea by the President, has also been informed about the date and time of the execution, the IG of Prisons said.

This would be first hanging in the State after a gap of eleven years, he said adding the last execution of the death sentence was in 1993 of two murder convicts Kartik Sil and Sukumar Burman.

The death sentence for the 43-year-old Chatterjee had generated a national debate with the civil rights organisations demanding an end to capital punishment.

Chatterjee’s mercy plea had been rejected by the President after consultations with legal experts including Attorney General Milon Banerji.

This was the second time that his mercy plea had been rejected by the President after a similar rejection in 1994.

Chatterjee had been sentenced to death by a Kolkota Sessions Court on August 12, 1991 and the order was confirmed by the Calcutta High Court in 1992. The Supreme Court also upheld the conviction and sentence in January 1994.

Since his death sentence in 1992 by the sessions court for the gruesome act, Dhananjoy has successfully used loopholes in the legal procedures to escape the gallows for over a decade.

Chatterjee had escaped the noose by a whisker once before in 1994, when he received a stay on his execution from the Calcutta High Court and the Supreme Court.

He had moved the High Court a day before February 25, 1994, the date fixed for his execution and obtained a stay from the court on the ground that he had moved a mercy petition before the President on February 17.

On the same day (February 24) his wife Purnima, had moved the apex court seeking a stay on the execution on the ground that she be allowed time to move a mercy petition before the President.

The apex court granted the stay for a week till March four and a communique was received by the West Bengal Judicial Department the same evening about the stay, just hours before the scheduled execution at 4.30 a.m the next morning.

Chatterjee managed to secure two more extensions on the stay by the High Court and then an unlimited stay till the disposal of his petition by the President, suppressing the fact that his wife had also obtained a stay on his execution from the apex court giving the same reason, Public Prosecutor for the State in the High Court, Kaji Safiullah, said.

While the mercy petition was rejected by the President on June 23, 1994, the State Government did not take any step to vacate the stay by the High Court, till it came to the notice of a Judicial Department officer in October 2003.

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