Nirbhaya case: Delhi court defers hanging of 4 death row convicts till further order

A Delhi court on Monday yet again deferred hanging of four death row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case, in view of filing of a mercy plea by one of them.

This is the third time the execution has been postponed in the matter. All the four were scheduled to be hanged at 6 am on March 3 in Tihar jail here.

Though the victim's side strongly resisted the move, Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana said, “I am of the opinion that any condemned convict must not meet his Creator with a grievance in his bosom that the courts of this country has not acted fairly in granting him an opportunity to exhaust his legal remedies.”

The court said the death sentence cannot be executed, as Pawan Gupta's counsel sought stay on it on the ground that he has filed a mercy petition before the President on Monday itself. His curative petition was dismissed by the top court on the morning itself.

Reacting angrily to the development, a crying, Nirbhaya's mother said, "This shows failure of our system. The whole world is watching how justice is getting delayed." The convicts will be hanged one day, though she loses every day, she said.

Earlier on Monday, the court pulled up the convict's lawyer A P Singh for acting so late in filing the curative and mercy pleas. It had earlier on the day dismissed a plea by Pawan and Akshay for staying the warrant.

However, as the court was informed of filing of mercy plea by Pawan, it said, “The conundrum of executing the death sentence against the condemned convicts does not seem to be over.”

The death warrants issued in the case for January 22 and February 1 were deferred due to filing of mercy and other plea by the convicts.

Notably, the top court has fixed on March 5 a plea by the Centre and Delhi government to allow separate hanging of the convicts, who have exhausted their legal and constitutional remedies.

Four convicts -- Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan Kumar Gupta (25), Vinay Kumar Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar (31) were sentenced to the capital punishment in gruesome gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman in a moving bus in South Delhi on December 16, 2012.