7 days to file petition, Tihar tells Dec 16 convicts

Tihar Jail authorities here have given four death row convicts on December 16, 2012, gang-rape cum murder case seven days time to file a mercy petition before the President against the sentence, in an indication of the move to execute them.

“All legal remedies in your case as available under the Constitution have been exhausted, except the provision of filing 'mercy petition' against the capital sentence before the President...You can file it within seven days,” jail authorities said in a letter issued on October 29.

If the mercy petition was not filed within seven days, the prison authorities indicated to approach the court, which will issue a death warrant, saying they will “initiate further necessary legal proceedings as per law”.

Separate notices were sent to three of the convicts lodged in Tihar and one in Mandoli jail here.

The mother of December 16, 2012, Delhi gang-rape victim hailed the decision.

"This should have happened long ago, the Supreme Court had given the verdict in 2017. I have been struggling for 7 years now, but they haven't been hanged yet. Jail authorities have taken the right step," she said.

The 23-year-old paramedic student was raped on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a running bus in south Delhi by six persons and severely assaulted before being thrown out on the road. She died on December 29, 2012, at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.

One of the accused Ram Singh had hanged himself in the jail and another, the juvenile, was convicted of rape and murder and given the maximum sentence of three years' imprisonment in a reform facility.

On July 9, 2018, the apex court dismissed the pleas of three convicts -- Mukesh (32), Pawan Gupta (25) and Vinay Sharma (26) -- seeking review of May 5, 2017 verdict which upheld the capital punishment given to them by the Delhi High Court and the trial court.

The fourth death row convict, Akshay Kumar Singh (34), had not filed a review plea in the apex court.