Execution of Nirbhaya convicts will not happen on Jan 22 as mercy plea filed: Delhi govt to HC

The Delhi government Wednesday informed the High Court that execution of the death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case will not take place on January 22 as a mercy plea has been filed by one of them.

The four convicts -- Vinay Sharma (26), Mukesh Kumar (32), Akshay Kumar Singh (31) and Pawan Gupta (25) -- were to be hanged on January 22 at 7 am in Tihar jail. A Delhi court had issued their death warrants on January 7.

Justices Manmohan and Sangita Dhingra Sehgal were informed by the Delhi government and the Centre that the petition filed by convict Mukesh, challenging his death warrant, was premature.

The Delhi government and the prison authorities said that under the rules, they will have to wait for the mercy plea to be decided before executing the death warrant. They also said that none of the four convicts can be executed on January 22 unless the present mercy plea is decided.

In response to the submission by prison authorities, the court said "put your house in order".

"Your house is in disarray. The problem is people will lose confidence in the system. Things are not moving in the right direction. The system is capable of being exploited and we see a stratagem to exploit the system, which is oblivious about it," the court said.

The Supreme Court had on Tuesday dismissed the curative pleas of Mukesh and Vinay.

During the hearing Delhi government standing counsel (criminal) Rahul Mehra told the bench that now that one of them has filed a mercy plea, the execution of none of the four can be carried out as per the Prison Rules.

He said that since Mukesh has moved a mercy plea, as per the rules they have to wait for the other co-convicts to exhaust their mercy pleas as well.

To this the bench said, "Then your rule is bad if you cannot take action till all the co-convicts have moved mercy plea. There has been no application of mind. The system is suffering from cancer."