The consideration of death reference will get "primacy" over all other cases and it is a duty cast upon the high court to visit the case in its entirety, he said, adding that the court had to take into account the seriousness of the crime.
"Not many death references are pending before the high court and as and when death reference come before the court, it is decided as quickly and urgently as possible. All judges are aware of it and there are no unnecessary delays," Rupinder Singh Sodhi, a senior Supreme Court counsel who is a former judge of the Delhi High Court, told IANS.
Sodhi, who had awarded the death sentence to Santosh Kumar Singh who was convicted for the rape and murder of his Delhi Law Faculty junior Priyadarshini Matoo, said that in case the Delhi High Court confirms the death reference, the four convicts will have 90 days' time to appeal to the apex court.
(The trial court had sentenced Santosh Kumar Singh to life imprisonment, Sodhi had enhanced this to death and the Supreme Court had commuted this to life.)
