Mukesh Singh, one of the four death-row convicts in Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case, moved Supreme Court on Saturday challenging his rejection of mercy plea by the President of India. Mukesh’s mercy plea was rejected by the President on January 17. He is scheduled to be hanged on February 1.
A mercy plea to the President is seen as the last possible option available for a convict as a last resort in the Indian judicial system and a move involving challenging its rejection is unheard of.
“A petition was filed under Article 32 for judicial review of the manner of the rejection of the mercy petition in terms of the judgment of Supreme Court in Shatrughan Chauhan case,” said Mukesh Singh’s lawyer Vrinda Grover.
Six persons were arrested and charged with rape and murder of a 23-year-old medical student in Delhi in 2012, which came to be known as the Nirbhaya case. One of the accused was a minor and was tried in the juvenile justice court. Another accused – Ram Singh – had allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail. The four were sentenced to death by a trial court in September 2013, and the verdict was confirmed by Delhi High Court in 2014 and upheld by Supreme Court in 2017. Their review policies were dismissed too.
The four convicts on death row are Pawan Gupta, Mukesh Singh, Akshay Singh and Vinay Sharma, who are scheduled to be hanged on February 1 as per the death warrant issued.
Meanwhile, the Patiala House Court on Saturday dismissed the petitions of Pawan Gupta and Akshay Singh (two other convicts in the case), in which they said that the Tihar Jail authorities were delaying to hand over the documents they needed to file their curative and mercy petitions.
Additional Sessions Judge Ajay Kumar Jain ruled that the convicts could take the photos and relevant documents from the jail authorities. The public prosecutor appearing for the jail authorities refuted their claim and said that the documents were already handed over to them. He also accused the convicts of employing “delay tactics” to delay the date of their execution.
The Home Ministry recently moved Supreme Court to appeal for framing of strict rules so that death-row convicts cannot go on using the law for delaying their execution.
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