New Delhi: Nirbhaya’s parents urged Tuesday the Delhi High Court to expeditiously decide the Centre’s plea challenging stay on execution of the four convicts in the case of their daughter’s gangrape and murder.
Advocate Jitendra Jha, representing the parents of Nirbhaya said he mentioned the matter before the court for early disposal of the government’s plea.
Justice Suresh Kumar Kait, who had February 2 reserved order on the Centre’s plea after holding special hearing Saturday and Sunday, said the decision would be passed at the earliest.
The trial court January 17 issued black warrants for the second time for the execution of all the four convicts in the case – Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Kumar Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar (31) – in Tihar jail at 6.00am February 1. Earlier, January 7, the court had fixed January 22 as the hanging date.
The court again stayed the execution January 31 as the counsel for three convicts – Pawan, Vinay and Akshay – urged it to adjourn the matter ‘sine die’ as the legal remedies of the convicts were yet to be exhausted.
While the mercy pleas of Mukesh and Vinay have been rejected by the President, Pawan has not yet filed it. Akshay’s mercy plea was filed February 1 and is pending.
The Centre and Delhi government challenged the trial court’s order staying the execution.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing them, had contended that it was a deliberate and calculated design of the convicts to ‘frustrate mandate of law’ by getting their execution delayed and they were not entitled to any more time.
The counsel for the convicts opposed the plea. He said it was not maintainable and that the Centre was never a party in the case proceedings before the trial court and while the government was accusing the convicts of delay, it has woken up only now.
Nirbhaya, 23-year-old paramedic student, was raped 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 in Singapore’s Mount Elizabeth Hospital.
PTI
