Four Nirbhaya convicts won’t be hanged on January 22

new delhi — The four convicts in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case will not be hanged on January 22 as scheduled because one of them has moved a mercy plea and according to the prison rules, they cannot be executed till they exhaust all of their remedies under the law, the AAP government told the Delhi High Court on Wednesday.

The four convicts — Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Vinay Sharma (26), Akshay Kumar Singh (31) and Pawan Gupta (25) — were to be hanged on January 22 at 7am in Tihar jail. A Delhi court had issued their death warrants on January 7.

The Delhi government and prison authorities told a bench of Justices Manmohan and Sangita Dhingra Sehgal that under the prison rules, if death sentence has been awarded to more than one person in a case and if only one of them moves a mercy plea, the execution of the others too has to be postponed till the plea is decided.

‘System suffers from cancer’

“Then your rule is bad if you cannot take action till all the coconvicts have moved a mercy plea. It seems there has been non-application of mind (while framing the rules). The system is suffering from cancer,” the bench responded.

The court declined to interfere with the trial court’s January 7 order as sought by Mukesh, who contended that the order issuing death warrant be set aside as being un-executable as he has moved a mercy plea before the President.

The bench said if the convict wanted the date of execution to be set aside based on a subsequent event — moving of mercy plea — then “he must approach the court that passed the order”.

Sensing the high court’s stand, senior advocate Rebecca John and advocate Vrinda Grover, appearing for Mukesh, said they will withdraw the petition and move the sessions court bringing to its attention the subsequent developments. —