Miscarriage of justice, President rejected incomplete mercy petition: Nirbhaya convicts' lawyer

Advocate AP Singh, who is the lawyer for the death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case, on Thursday said that the President of India carried out a "complete miscarriage of justice" by rejecting the incomplete mercy petition of convict Akshay Kumar.

"Today, through media reports, I heard that the mercy petition on behalf of Akshay Kumar was rejected by President of India. In this regard, I want to clarify that on January 31, 2020, an incomplete mercy petition was filed before the President by the family member of Akshay," Singh told reporters.

President Ram Nath Kovind had, on Wednesday, rejected the mercy petition of convict Akshay. So far, mercy petitions of Vinay Sharma and Mukesh Singh have also been rejected.

"I respect the President very much and he is a Constitutional body. But this is a complete miscarriage of justice by President of India. I will file a complete mercy petition tomorrow," Singh said.

"I had handed over the mercy petition to the family member of Akshay Kumar, to file complete documents as per the guidelines of the President. Due to a misunderstanding and being an illiterate person, they (family of Akshay) filed an incomplete mercy petition before President of India on behalf of Akshay, on January 31, 2020," he added.

Singh said that during a hearing in Delhi High Court, Solicitor General and Delhi's counsel had also accepted the fact that an incomplete mercy petition was pending before the President.

"On Feb 1, I had moved an application before the President's secretariat central registry centre in New Delhi, with the ingredients that the petition filed on behalf of Akshay Kumar was incomplete, without affidavit, signature of Akshay, attestation satisfied by the jail, character, economic situation, condition, criminal record of the convict," he said.

He said that it is a very important point to file a complete mercy petition in the matter.

"I also request the President of India not to take any action on the mercy petition filed on January 31, 2020, and also record that take this application on record for kind perusal of the matter," Singh said.

Meanwhile, Supreme Court today agreed to hear on Friday Central government's appeal against Delhi High Court order, which rejected its plea to separately execute the four convicts in the case.