New Delhi: A Delhi court Wednesday directed Tihar jail authorities to seek response within a week from four death row convicts in the sensational 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape-cum-murder case as to whether they are filing mercy pleas against their executions with the President of India.
The development assumes significance as the Supreme Court dismissed Wednesday the plea of Akshay Kumar Singh, one of the four convicts. It said that review petition is not ‘re-hearing of appeal over and over again’ and it had already considered the mitigating and aggravating circumstances while upholding the death penalty.
The 23-year-old paramedic student was gangraped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a moving bus in south Delhi by six persons before being thrown out on the road. She died December 29, 2012 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.
Additional Sessions Judge Satish Kumar Arora commenced the hearing on Delhi government’s plea seeking issuance of death warrants for executing the convicts just after the apex court verdict, and said that it will wait for the copy of the judgement.
The court then adjourned the hearing for January 7, 2020.
As the hearing commenced, the court was informed about apex court’s decision dismissing review plea of Akshay. The court, however, said, ‘Let order of Supreme Court be officially communicated’.
The lawyer appearing for Nirbhaya’s mother said that there was no impediment in issuing death warrants in the case.
Consoling Nirbhaya’s crying mother, the judge said, “I have full sympathy with you. I know someone has died but there are their rights too. We are here to listen to you but are also bound by the law.”
The apex court had dismissed July 9, last year the review pleas filed by the other three convicts – Mukesh (30), Pawan Gupta (23) and Vinay Sharma (24) – in the case, saying no grounds have been made out by them for review of the 2017 verdict.
However, even Justice Arora’s comforting words did not act as a balm for Nirbhaya’s mother. She also broke down outside the Patiala House court after the court adjourned for January 7 the hearing on the issuance of death warrants against the four convicts in the Delhi gangrape-and-murder case. She said she was ‘upset’ at the court’s decision.
“The convicts have been given one more chance. Why are their rights being considered? What about our rights?” she asked.
Earlier in the day, she had welcomed the Supreme Court decision to dismiss the plea filed by one of the four convicts in the case, seeking review of its 2017 judgment upholding his death penalty.
A teary-eyed Nirbhaya’s mother expressed her frustration at the hearing being adjourned.
“We have been fighting for seven years and the court has not considered our rights when giving this decision. There is no guarantee that a final judgement will be delivered on the next hearing as well,” she told reporters.
PTI
