New Delhi, Sept. 25 -- The Union government on Wednesday pressed the Supreme Court to expedite hearing on its plea seeking stricter timelines for death row convicts to avail legal remedies and for executions to be carried out within seven days after rejection of a mercy petition. Appearing before a bench of justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and NV Anjaria, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) KM Nataraj said the Centre wanted certain modifications to the 2014 Shatrughan Chauhan judgment so that the framework for death penalty cases factored in the rights and agony of victims. In Shatrughan Chauhan's case, the top court held that delays beyond of the convicts' control qualify as grounds for commuting the death penalty, holding that the pain and suffering brought on by the delay warrant commutation of sentence to life in prison. The government's push for strict timelines on executions came on a day when, in a separate case, the same bench pulled up the Centre for sitting over Balwant Singh Rajoana's mercy plea and failing to execute him even 15 years after his death sentence was confirmed, despite there being no stay from the court. Rajoana was sentenced to death in connection with the 1995 assassination of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh. Pushing for righter timelines ASG Nataraj told the bench: "The government is seeking modifications in the earlier judgment to ensure that the process does not continue endlessly with mercy petitions, review and curative pleas." "It (execution) will prolong...It will keep on going on by filing application after application. Ultimately, we will not be able to do anything. Victims will suffer. Shatrughan Chauhan (judgment) comes in the way of many cases, we want some clarification," the ASG said. At this, the bench said it would hear the matter on October 8, clarifying that no adjournments would be entertained. The MHA had moved modification application in 2020 when legal remedies filed one after the other by the four convicts in the 2012 Delhi gangrape/murder case delayed their execution. They were hanged in March 2020 after the SC dismissed their last petition. HTC...