With the date of execution approaching, the counsel for the four death-row convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case moved a court here on Wednesday seeking quashing of their death penalty, saying the second mercy plea of Akshay Singh, one of the convicts, is still pending.
Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Dharmendra Rana issued notices to the Tihar Jail authorities and the police on the plea and said he will hear it on Thursday.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, another convict, Pawan Gupta moved the Supreme Court with a curative petition against the dismissal of his review plea rejecting his juvenility claim.
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday reserved order on the plea of Mukesh, one of the four death-row convicts, challenging a trial court order dismissing his plea that he was not in the national Capital when the crime took place on December 16, 2012.
Justice Brijesh Sethi reserved the order after hearing arguments of counsels of the convict and the Delhi Government. Earlier, the trial court had dismissed Mukesh’s plea and asked the Bar Council of India to give sensitisation exercise to his counsel.
The convicts — Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay (31) — are scheduled to be hanged on March 20 at 5.30 am.
The death warrant of the four convicts was deferred for the first time on January 17. The court issued death warrants again with execution date as February 1 at 6 am.
On January 31, the court again postponed the execution till further order. On February 17 it issued fresh death warrants for March 3. On March 2, it deferred hanging of the death-row convicts till further order and on March 5 it fixed March 20 as the fresh date of execution of the convicts.
A 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who came to be known as ‘Nirbhaya’ (fearless), was gangraped and savagely assaulted in a moving bus in south Delhi on December 16, 2012. She died after a fortnight.
Six people, including the four convicts and a juvenile, were named as accused. Ram Singh, the sixth accused, allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail days after the trial began in the case. The juvenile was released in 2015 after spending three years in a correctional home.
