NIRBHAYA CASE

Two convicts file plea seeking stay on the execution

Court Seeks Tihar’s Reply By March 2

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi:01.03.2020

As the date of hanging approaches, convicts in the Nirbhaya case have once again got active.

Saturday saw two of the four moving a Delhi court seeking stay on execution of the death warrants, scheduled for March 3, on the ground that a fresh mercy plea had been filed by Akshay Thakur.

Additional Session Judge Dharmender Rana issued notice to Tihar Jail authorities on the pleas moved of Thakur and Pawan Gupta, directing the officials to file their response by March 2.

In his plea moved through his lawyer, Thakur claimed he had filed a fresh mercy petition before the President, which was pending and therefore the death warrants needed to be deferred.

Meanwhile, advocate A P Singh, appearing for Mukesh Singh, claimed that his earlier mercy petition dismissed by the President did not have complete facts and were filed in a hurry which led to it being incomplete.

Gupta, in his plea, told the court he had filed a curative petition before the Supreme Court, which too was pending. He said that he also had the option of filing a mercy petition, which he was yet to exercise.

On February 17, the court had ordered that the four convicts — Singh, Gupta, Thakur and Vinay Sharma be hanged on March 3 after it issued fresh death warrants, observing that deferring the execution any further would be “sacrilegious” to the rights of the victim for expeditious justice.

Meanwhile, in a connected development a PIL was filed on Saturday in Delhi high court seeking directions to the National Human Rights Commission to set up an inquiry and submit a report about the physical and mental condition of the four death row convicts.