Delhi HC grants a week to Nirbhaya convicts to avail all legal remedies

Delhi High Court on Wednesday granted a week's time to the four death row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case to avail all legal remedies available to them.

A single-judge bench of Justice Suresh Kumar Kait said that the proceedings against them for the execution of death warrant will be initiated after a week.

The High Court observed that according to Delhi prison rules if a mercy petition is submitted, a 14 days period has to be given after the dismissal of the mercy plea.

The death warrant against all four convicts cannot be executed separately, it said.

The High Court also dismissed the petition filed by the central government and Tihar jail authorities challenging the Patiala House Court's order which had stayed the execution of the convicts in the matter.

The court had on Sunday reserved its order in the matter after hearing arguments from all the sides.

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.

The case pertains to the gang-rape and brutal murder 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.