Nirbhaya case: Convict Mukesh Singh moves court seeking quashing of death penalty

One of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case on Tuesday moved a court here to seek quashing of his death penalty on grounds that he was not in the city on the day of the crime.

Mukesh Kumar's plea before Additional Sessions Judge Dharmendra Rana claimed he was arrested from Rajasthan and brought to Delhi on December 17, 2012, one day after the crime.

The plea, three days before the four men convicted for the gangrape and murder of the 23-year-old physiotherapy intern are scheduled to be hanged, also alleged that he was tortured inside the Tihar jail.

The matter is scheduled to be heard later on Tuesday.

On March 5, a trial court issued fresh warrants for the execution of Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) on March 20, 5.30 am.

This is the fourth death warrant. The earlier three were deferred pending the exhaustion of legal remedies by the convicts.

On Monday, Mukesh moved the Supreme Court seeking restoration of legal remedies and alleging that his earlier counsel misled and forced him to sign the papers.

The apex court had refused to entertain his plea.

On July 9, 2018, the court dismissed his review plea against its judgement. Later, his curative and mercy pleas were rejected by the top court and President Ram Nath Kovind respectively.

The young woman, who came to be known as 'Nirbhaya' (the fearless one), was gangraped and savagely assaulted in a moving bus in south Delhi on December 16, 2012. She died after a fortnight.

Six people, including the four convicts and a juvenile, were named as accused. Ram Singh, the sixth accused, allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail days after the trial began in the case.

The juvenile was released in 2015 after spending three years in a correctional home.