Nirbhaya convicts move Delhi Court, seek stay on death penalty citing pendency of legal applications

New Delhi: Nirbhaya case convicts on Wednesday (March 18) moved Delhi Court seeking a stay on the sentence of the death penalty on the grounds of pendency of various legal applications, appeals, and second mercy plea. According to the death warrant, all the four convicts are scheduled to be hanged on 20th March.

The Court will hear on Thursday plea seeking a stay on the execution of the death penalty of the convicts. 

Earlier in the day, the High Court reserved its order on a petition filed by Mukesh Singh challenging the trial court`s order dismissing his plea seeking quashing of death penalty claiming that he was not in the city when the crime was committed.

A Bench of Justice Brijesh Sethi reserved the order after hearing arguments from both sides and is likely to pronounce the order later today. Advocate Rahul Mehra, the standing counsel of the state, opposed the plea and said it is a desperate attempt to stall the execution and that we should not fall prey to this attempt and Mukesh application deserved to be dismissed.

"What prevented them to tell about torture if he was facing it in jail. Mukesh could have written a letter to the competent authority about the torture", Mehra submitted. 

In his plea, filed through advocate ML Sharma, Mukesh has sought to set aside trial court order passed on March 17, which had dismissed the petition. The petitioner said that the trial is the outcome of concealment of vital documents by fixing the petitioner in place of actual accused persons which is liable to be examined within the filed evidence on records.

On Tuesday, a Delhi court had also sent the matter to the Bar Council of India for appropriate sensitization observing that the conduct of the counsel for the convict needs to be brought to notice.

Notably, Akshay on Tuesday had filed a second mercy petition to Tihar Jail authorities, addressed to the President of India. This will also be forwarded to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) through Delhi government, Tihar Jail official reportedly stated

The four convicts -- Mukesh Singh, Akshay Singh Thakur, Pawan Gupta, and Vinay Sharma -- are scheduled to be hanged at 5:30 am on March 20. 

Meanwhile, a hangman from Meerut, Pawan, today conducted dummy execution of the Nirbhaya case convicts at Tihar Jail.