A Delhi court on Friday dismissed the Tihar jail’s plea seeking fresh date for execution of the four death row convicts in the December 16, 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case, taking note of the Delhi High Court order giving them a week’s time to exercise their legal remedies.
Additional Sessions Judge Dharmendra Rana said, “It is criminally sinful to execute the convicts when law permits them to live. The High Court on February 5 has permitted the convicts, in the interest of justice, to exercise their legal remedies within one week”.
The court said, “I concur with counsel for the convicts that death warrants cannot be executed merely on basis of surmises and conjectures.”
On January 31, the trial court stayed the execution of Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Kumar Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar (31).
Nirbhaya case: SC in no hurry to hear Centre, Delhi pleas to separately execute convicts
The Tihar jail, in its plea, said the President had dismissed the mercy petitions of three convicts and that no application by any of the four was currently pending before any court.
Except Pawan, all convicts have exhausted their legal remedy available to file a curative petition before the Supreme Court. The President had rejected the mercy pleas of Mukesh, Akshay and Vinay.
