The Nirbhaya case convicts now have a weeks’ time to exhaust legal remedies against their hanging. The convicts will be executed together and not separately said the Delhi high court.
New Delhi: On February 5, Delhi high court granted the four convicts on death row in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case, a week's time to exhaust all legal remedies available to them. The high court also said all convicts in the Nirbhaya case have to be executed together, and not separately.
The court added that the Delhi prison rules do not say that if mercy petition of one convict is pending, the execution of the other convicts can take place.
After a week, the trial court will begin proceedings for their execution, the Delhi high court said today.
"Since up to the Supreme Court their fate has been decided by a common judgment, I am of the opinion that death warrant of all convicts should be executed together and not separately," Justice Suresh Kumar Kait said.
The high court dismissed the Centre's plea challenging the trial court's order staying the execution of the convicts. The Centre and the Delhi government had challenged the trial court's January 31 order staying till further orders the execution of all the four convicts in the case — Mukesh Kumar Singh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Kumar Sharma and Akshay Kumar, who are lodged in Tihar Jail.
Nirbhaya:
A 23-year-old paramedical student was gang-raped and murdered in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, by six people, including a juvenile in Delhi. The woman succumbed to injuries at a Singapore hospital a few days later.
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