The Delhi High Court has requested the Indian government's position on a request to allow the mother of a woman from Kerala, who is facing a death sentence in Yemen for the murder of a national, to travel to Yemen in order to prevent her daughter from being executed.

Justice Subramonium Prasad instructed the government's legal representative to submit a progress report within two weeks and scheduled another hearing for November 16. The government's lawyer requested additional time to seek instructions and prepare the progress report.

The court was addressing a petition filed by Nimisha Priya's mother, who has received a death sentence in Yemen. The petitioner had previously approached the high court, seeking instructions for government intervention and negotiations with the victim's family to spare her daughter's life.

In her current plea, the petitioner, Premakumari, is requesting the court to instruct the authorities to grant her permission to travel to Yemen, even though there is a travel ban in place for Indian citizens.

The petitioner has argued that the sole means to spare her daughter from the death penalty is to engage in negotiations with the deceased's family and offer them blood money as compensation. To accomplish this, she must travel to Yemen. However, the existing travel ban is preventing her from doing so. Blood money typically refers to the compensation paid by a wrongdoer or their relatives to the victim's family as a form of restitution or compensation.

In the previous year, the 'Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council' had filed a petition in the high court, requesting the central government to take steps to enable diplomatic interventions and negotiations with the victim's family on behalf of Nimisha Priya. The goal was to save her life by offering blood money in accordance with the country's legal procedures, and to do so within a specified timeframe.

The high court had declined to issue a directive to the central government to engage in negotiations for the payment of blood money in order to save the woman.

In the earlier petition, it was explained that Priya, an Indian nurse employed in Yemen, was convicted in 2020 for the murder of a Yemeni national. The accusation against Priya was that she had killed Talal Abdo Mahdi. Mahdi passed away in July 2017, allegedly due to an overdose after she injected him with sedatives in an attempt to retrieve her passport, which was in his possession.

The plea had asserted that Mahdi had falsified documents to falsely claim that he was married to her. It further claimed that she had been subjected to alleged abuse and torture by him.

Despite her appeal against the death penalty being rejected, another opportunity for appeal before the Supreme Court still exists. However, it was noted that Priya is unlikely to be spared, and her sole hope to avoid the death sentence is if the victim's family agrees to accept blood money as compensation.