Nirbhaya case: Delhi court dismisses petition seeking fresh date for execution of convicts

The court stated that it is criminally sinful to hang the convicts when the law permits them to live and death warrants cannot be issued based on conjecture alone

New Delhi: A Delhi court on Friday dismissed a plea seeking a fresh date for the execution of four convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case.

Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana dismissed the plea after concluding arguments and stated that death warrants cannot be issued on the basis of conjecture alone. "It is criminally sinful to execute the convicts when the law permits them to live," the court said.

Public prosecutor Irfan Ahmad apprised the court about the recent order of the Delhi High Court which allowed the convicts seven days' time to exhaust all their legal remedies.

"As three mercy petitions have been dismissed till now and now no application of any convicts is pending in any court. Kindly issue a fresh date of execution," Ahmad prayed.

Advocate Jitender Kumar Jha, appearing for the parents of the victim, said that delaying tactic was being used in the matter by convicts to frustrate the law.

On the other hand, advocate Vrinda Grover appearing for convicts Mukesh opposed the plea and stated that the plea moved by the prosecution is premature and argued that the high court has clearly demarcated the timeline.

Grover said that subsequent action by authorities can only be taken after the expiry of seven days as directed by the high court.

This came after President Ram Nath Kovind rejected the mercy petition of convict Akshay Thakur. So far, mercy petitions of Vinay Sharma and Mukesh Singh have also been rejected.

Meanwhile, the Central government has approached the Supreme Court against the order of Delhi High Court, which rejected its plea to separately execute the four convicts in the case.

The Delhi high court had, on Wednesday, granted a week's time to the four death row convicts to avail all legal remedies available to them and said that the convicts cannot be hanged separately since they were convicted for the same crime.

A Delhi court had earlier stayed till further orders the execution of the four convicts Akshay Thakur, Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, and Vinay Sharma which was earlier scheduled to take place on February 1.