Nirbhaya case: Lawyer of convicts writes to International Court of Justice, seeks stay on March 22 hanging

Supreme Court, however, today rejected the plea of Mukesh Singh, one of the four death-row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case, paving the way for convicts' hanging on March 20.

New Delhi: Nirbhaya rape and murder case took a new twist on Monday (March 16) as the counsel for convicts wrote to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) seeking a stay on the March 20 hanging of the 4 convicts. The lawyer also demanded that all the records of the lower court should be brought to the ICJ so that the case can be presented before it. 

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court today rejected the plea of Mukesh Singh, one of the four death-row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case, paving the way for convicts' hanging on March 20. 

Mukesh has sought restoration of all his legal remedies alleging that his earlier lawyers misled him.

The SC bench of Justices Arun Mishra and M R Shah held Mukesh's plea as not maintainable and said the review petition and the curative petition have both been dismissed in the case.

The convict had sought quashing of all orders passed by courts and the rejection of his mercy petition by the President since the day his curative petition was dismissed by the top court on the ground that the earlier lawyer Vrinda Grover had misled him.

The plea, filed through advocate M L Sharma, sought a CBI probe into alleged "criminal conspiracy" and "fraud" hatched by the Centre, the Delhi government and advocate Vrinda Grover, who is the amicus curiae in the case.

Meanwhile, Asha Devi, he mother of the victim, today appealed for justice saying she has also been suffering for the past seven years.

She told ANI, "I would also want to appeal to the President to help me get justice for my daughter as well. People know me and my children by the name of Nirbhaya. I have also been dying for the last seven years," adding that she had to cope with people`s taunts about how she created a drama in these last seven years.

"I have to listen to all the things and taunts of the people say. People say I am creating a drama. I want to tell the whole country that if there someone who has been a victim to a crime and her/his family is demanding justice, and if this is a drama then I want to say that yes I am creating a drama," she said.

On March 5, a trial court issued fresh warrants with March 20, 5.30 am, as the date for the execution of the convicts -Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Singh (31). 

Notably, a 23-year-old paramedic student, referred to as Nirbhaya, was brutally gang-raped and assaulted by six men in a moving bus in Delhi in December 2012 and was thrown out on the road. She succumbed to her injuries at a Singapore hospital on December 29, 2012.