All 4 Nirbhaya case convicts to be hanged on Friday; legal options exhausted

The Supreme Court also refused to entertain Mukesh Singh's plea challenging Delhi High Court order which rejected his claim that he was not in the city when at the time of crime on December 16, 2012.

New Delhi: The stage is set for the hanging of all the four Nirbhaya case convicts on Friday (March 20) morning as a Delhi court on Thursday (March 19) dismissed the plea of three death-row convicts seeking a stay on their execution while Supreme Court also refused to entertain the plea of another convict Mukesh Singh, challenging Delhi High Court's order that had rejected his claim that he was not in the city when at the time of crime on December 16, 2012.

Delhi court's Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana today dismissed the plea of Akshay Kumar, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma seeking a stay on the death penalty, saying the second mercy plea of one of them was still pending. The court was informed by the public prosecutor that second mercy pleas of Akshay and Pawan, were rejected on the ground that the first such plea was entertained and considered on merit.

Public prosecutor further informed the court that advocate A P Singh, counsel for the convicts, was giving false information about second mercy plea of Pawan and said that all the convicts have exhausted their legal remedies.

Meanwhile, the apex court today also refused to entertain Mukesh Singh's plea challenging Delhi High Court order which rejected his claim that he was not in the city when at the time of crime on December 16, 2012.

The SC bench of Justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bhushan and A S Bopanna said the convict has exhausted all his remedies and no fresh evidence can be entertained at this level, while adding that the court does not find any merit in the plea, therefore, it cannot be entertained.

On Wednesday, the Delhi HC said that there were no grounds to interfere in the reasoned order of the trial court, which had dismissed Mukesh Singh's plea on Tuesday, and asked the Bar Council of India to appropriately sensitise his counsel.

Notably, the four convicts have been trying to postpone their hanging on the pretext of pending legal remedies. "No legal remedies are pending as of now. Pawan and Akshay`s second mercy was also not entertained by the President of India," Public Prosecutor Irfan Ahmad told the court.

Ahmad said President Ram Nath Kovind had entertained their first mercy plea on merits and it was given due consideration.

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 (31). The convicts had brutally raped and murdered a 23-year-old physiotherapy student on December 16, 2012.