New Delhi: Three of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case moved a court here on Wednesday seeking stay on their death penalty, saying the second mercy plea of one of them is still pending.
Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana issued notices to the Tihar jail authorities and the police on the plea and said he will hear it tomorrow.
On March 5, a trial court had issued fresh death warrants for March 20 at 5.30 am, as the date for the execution of convicts Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Singh (31).
The warrants, which were issued for the first time on January 7, have been deferred four times earlier on the ground that they were yet to exhaust all the legal remedies.
Convict Akshay Singh on Tuesday filed a second mercy petition before President Ram Nath Kovind.
The same day, another convict Pawan Gupta also moved the Supreme Court with a curative petition against the dismissal of his review plea rejecting his juvenility claim.
Special Public Prosecutor Rajeev Mohan opposed the plea saying it was not maintainable.
The judge then asked advocate A P Singh, appearing for the three convicts, as to why he was filing the application at the end of the working day when he knew there was only one day left for the hanging.
To this, Singh said he was busy with work as numerous petitions filed by the convicts were pending in different courts.
The plea said the review mercy petitions filed by Akshay and Pawan were pending before the President. The plea was filed on behalf of Akshay, Vinay and Pawan.
The plea said that the stay would apply to the fourth convict Mukesh also since they cannot be separately hanged.
It also said that the divorce petition filed by Akshay's wife was pending before a local court in Bihar.
The plea said that the applications would require time for consideration and hence the present execution date of March 20 was unsustainable and should be set aside.
A 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who came to be known as 'Nirbhaya' (fearless), was gang raped 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.
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, 6 am.
On January 31, the court again postponed the execution of the black warrants 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, 5:30 am as the fresh date of execution of the convicts.
