Delhi ’12 gang rape convicts move ICJ for stay on death sentence

THE SC, EARLIER IN THE DAY, REJECTED THE PLEA OF MUKESH SINGH, ONE OF THE FOUR CONVICTS SEEKING RESTORATION OF HIS LEGAL REMEDIES ALLEGING THAT HIS LAWYERS MISLED HIM

NEW DELHI: Three of four 2012 Delhi gang rape convicts have approached the International Court of Justice (ICJ) seeking a stay on the execution of their death sentence, news agency ANI reported.

Convicts Akshay, Pawan and Vinay are the three convicts who have moved the international court.

This comes shortly after the Supreme Court on Monday ordered the petition filed by one of the 2012 Delhi gang rape death row convict Mukesh Singh seeking action against his former lawyer Vrinda Grover to be withdrawn.

The apex court, earlier in the day, rejected the plea of Mukesh Singh, one of the four death-row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case, seeking restoration of all his legal remedies alleging that his earlier lawyers misled him.

A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and M R Shah hel d Singh’s plea as not maintainable saying that the review petition and the curative petition have both been dismissed in the case.

The c o nvi c t had s o ught quashing of all orders passed by courts and the rejection of his mercy petition by the President since the day his curative petition was dismissed by the apex court on the ground that the earlier lawyer Vrinda Grover had misled him.

The plea, filed through advocate M L Sharma, sought a CBI probe into alleged “criminal conspiracy” and “fraud” hatched by the Centre, the Delhi government and advocate Vrinda Grover, who is the amicus curiae in the case.

On March 5, a t ri al court issued fresh warrants with March 20, 5.30 am, as the date for the execution of the convicts — Mukesh Singh ( 32) , Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Singh (31).

A 23-year-old paramedic stud e n t was g a n g - r a p e d a n d assaulted by six men in a moving bus in Delhi in December 2012 and was thrown out on the road. One of her friends, who accompanied her that day, was also allegedly beaten up when he tried to intervene. She succumbed to her injuries at a Singapore hospital on December 29, 2012.

Ram Singh, one of the six accused in the case, allegedly committed suicide in Delhi’s Tihar Jail.

A j u v e n i l e c o n v i c t was released from a reformation home after serving a three-year term.

So far, President Ram Nath Kovind has rejected the mercy petitions of all the convicts in the matter. However, a “complete” mercy petition of convict Akshay Singh Thakur has also been filed claiming that the previous one, which was rejected by the President, did not have “complete facts”.