One Nirbhaya convict’s mercy plea pending, others can be hanged tomorrow, Tihar officials said

Tihar jail
authorities on Friday challenged before a Delhi court the maintainability of
the application filed by three death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and
murder case, seeking stay of their execution on February 1.

Opposing the
plea, the prison authorities told Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana
that the mercy plea of only one convict in the 2012 rape and murder case is
pending, and the other three convicts can be hanged as scheduled in the death
warrants.

The
convicts’ lawyer AP Singh, however, said rules dictate that others cannot be
hanged while the mercy plea of one of them is pending. Singh also urged the
court to adjourn matter “sine die” (with no appointed date for
resumption).

The court
had on Thursday issued notice to the jail authorities seeking their response on
the plea of the death row convicts seeking stay on their executions.

Advocate Singh, representing three death row convicts — Pawan Gupta, Vinay Kumar Sharma and Akshay Kumar, urged the court to adjourn the executions “sine die” as legal remedies of some of the convicts are yet to be availed.

The trial court on January 17 issued black warrants for the second time for the execution of all the four convicts in the case, Mukesh (32), Pawan (25), Vinay (26) and Akshay (31) in Tihar jail at 6:00 am on February 1. Earlier, on January 7, the court had fixed January 22 as the hanging date.

As of now,
only Mukesh has exhausted all his legal remedies, including the clemency plea
which was dismissed by President Ramnath Kovind on January 17 and the appeal
against the rejection was thrown out by the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

The victim,
a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern who came to be known as “Nirbhaya”
was gang-raped and savagely assaulted on the night of December 16, 2012, in a
moving bus in South Delhi. She died of her injuries a fortnight later in a
Singapore hospital.