Delhi Court to hear Nirbhaya convicts' plea seeking stay on execution

Delhi Patiala House Court on Friday will hear a plea by two of the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder convicts, seeking a stay on their execution scheduled for February 1.

The plea was moved in the Delhi court by advocate AP Singh, who is representing convicts Akshay Thakur and Vinay Sharma.

"According to the Delhi Prison Rules, none of those convicted can be hanged until all of them have exhausted all legal options including the mercy petition," said Singh in the plea.

Responding to the petition filed by Singh, public prosecutor Irfan Ahmad told the court that this is "clearly a mockery of justice". "Convicts' lawyers are taking too much time to use their legal remedies," he said.

The matter will be heard by Additional Sessions Judge AK Jain today at 2 pm.

The court on Thursday issued a notice to the Tihar jail authorities seeking its response on a petition filed by the convicts and asked the prison officials to submit a status report before 10 am today.

The four convicts in the matter -- Akshay Thakur, Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, and Vinay Kumar Sharma -- are scheduled to be hanged on February 1.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court dismissed convict Thakur's curative petition, which sought commutation of the convict's death sentence to life imprisonment.

Recently, Sharma has filed a mercy petition in the matter.

Earlier, Mukesh Kumar too had filed a mercy petition, which was rejected by the President. He later challenged the rejection of his mercy petition in the Supreme Court but to no avail.

The case pertains to the gang-rape and brutalising of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, by six people including a juvenile in Delhi. The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later.

One of the five adults accused, Ram Singh, had allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail during the trial of the case.