Dec 16 convict files mercy petition with Prez Kovind

MUKESH SINGH AND VINAY SHARMA LOST CURATIVE PLEAS; PAWAN AND AKSHAY ARE YET TO APPROACH SC

NEW DELHI: One of the convicts in the 2012 Delhi gang rape case, Mukesh Singh, on Tuesday filed a mercy petition with President Ram Nath Kovind.

Mukesh’s mercy plea came within hours of the Supreme Court rejecting the curative petition of two convicts — Mukesh and Vinay Sharma — in the case on Tuesday.

Convicts Vinay and Mukesh had filed the curative petition after being sentenced to death by the Apex court along with two others Pawan Gupta and Akshay Thakur. Pawan and Akshay are yet to file curative petitions before the Supreme Court. Simultaneously, Mukesh on Tuesday also moved the Delhi High Court challenging a lower court’s decision to issue a death warrant for the execution of the four men in Tihar on January 22. The court will take up the matter for hearing today (Wednesday).

In his plea before the high court, Mukesh said that his mercy plea is pending before the President and that he should be given a minimum of 14 days notice, if the petition is rejected by the President.

Citing a judgment of the Supreme Court, the plea further said that the Apex court had held that there must be a minimum of 14 days notice between the communication of rejection of mercy plea and the scheduled date of execution so that a convict can avail his judicial remedies and make all final preparations.

The President of India has the power to commute the death sentence awarded to a convict.

The four men — Pawan Gupta, Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma and Mukesh Singh — are on death row after being convicted in the 2012 Delhi gangrape case. The four had gangraped and assaulted a 23-year-old paramedic student inside a moving bus on December 16, 2012. The young woman died at a hospital in Singapore on December 29.

DELHI COURT HAD ISSUED DEATH WARRANT OF CONVICTS

A city court had on January 7 issued the death warrant for the hanging of the four men at the Tihar jail complex on January 22 at 7am. Following the court’s order, jail officials have started preparation for the hanging of the four men and arranged a hangman from Uttar Pradesh prisons department.

The prison authorities have also redone the gallows to ensure that the four men could be hanged simultaneously. Earlier, only two persons could be hanged at a ttime. Over the last two weeks, the prison officers have conducted at least three mock-hanging sessions using sandbags.