Nirbhaya Rape Case: SC to hear today plea of death row convict against dismissal of mercy petition

The Supreme Court will on Tuesday hear a writ petition filed by Mukesh Kumar Singh, one of the four death row convicts in the 2012 Delhi gang rape case.

Singh moved the top court on Monday and sought urgent hearing on his plea against dismissal of his mercy petition by the President.

The 32-year-old’s mercy plea was dismissed by President Ram Nath Kovind on January 17.

A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde said, “If somebody is going to be hanged then nothing can be more urgent than this” and asked Kumar’s counsel to approach the mentioning officer as the hanging is scheduled on February 1.

The bench also comprised justices B R Gavai and Surya Kant.

The warrant for execution of death sentence for Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Singh and Pawan Gupta in the case has been fixed on February 1 at 6 am. Their last-minute petitions have been widely seen as attempts to stall the hanging.

The 23-year-old Delhi medical student was gang-raped and tortured with an iron rod on a moving bus before being thrown off the vehicle on December 16, 2012.

Six men were arrested. One man was found hanging in his jail cell and the sixth, the youngest, just short of 18 at the time, was released after three years in a reform home.