Nirbhaya case: Tihar challenges before Delhi court maintainability of plea for stay of execution

Tihar jail authorities on Friday challenged before a Delhi court the maintainability of the application filed by three death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case, seeking stay of their execution on February 1.

The prison authorities opposed the plea, in its status report, filed before Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana.

The court had on Thursday issued notice to the jail authorities seeking their response on the plea of the death row convicts in the case, seeking stay on their executions scheduled for February 1.

Advocate A P Singh, representing three death row convicts -- Pawan Gupta, Vinay Kumar Sharma and Akshay Kumar -- urged the court to adjourn the executions "sine die" as legal remedies of some of the convicts are yet to be availed.

The trial court on January 17 issued black warrants for the second time for the execution of all the four convicts in the case -- Mukesh (32), Pawan (25), Vinay (26) and Akshay (31) -- in Tihar jail at 6 am on February 1. Earlier, on January 7, the court had fixed January 22 as the hanging date.

As of now, only Mukesh has exhausted all his legal remedies including the clemency plea which was dismissed by President Ram Nath Kovind on January 17 and the appeal against the rejection was thrown out by the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Their victim, a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern who came to be known as "Nirbhaya" (the fearless), was gang-raped and savagely assaulted on the night of December 16, 2012, in a moving bus in South Delhi. She died of her injuries a fortnight later in a Singapore hospital.