Stay on Nirbhaya case convicts` hanging: Delhi High Court to hear Centre`s plea on February 2

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Saturday issued a notice to Tihar jail authorities and all four convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape case and sought their replies on a plea challenging the stay on their execution by a trial court. The hearing will now take place on a special Sunday sitting on February 2 at 3 pm, the court said.

The court passed the order while hearing the petition filed by Centre and the Tihar Jail authorities challenging the trial court`s order which had stayed the execution of the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case.

Justice Suresh Kait issued a notice to the four convicts, Mukesh Kumar, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Akshay Singh and to DG (Prisons) and Tihar Jail authorities, seeking their stand on the Central government's plea. The lawyer of the DG (Prisons) told the court that its orders would be complied with.

During the hearing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing on behalf of the Centre, told the court that the convicts in the Nirbhaya case have taken the process of law on a "joyride" and are acting in tandem to delay their execution.

He further told the court that the Nirbhaya gangrape case will go down in the history of India where convicts of the heinous crime are trying the patience of the country.

A Delhi court had on Friday stayed till further orders the execution of four convicts - Akshay Thakur, Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, and Vinay Sharma - which was earlier scheduled to take place on February 1.

The case pertains to the gang-rape and brutalising of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, by six people including a juvenile in Delhi. 

The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later.One of the five adults accused, Ram Singh, had allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail during the trial of the case.