'Time is precious judicial entity': Court rejects Nirbhaya convict's plea

The court asked the Bar Council of India to give appropriate sensitisation exercise to Singh's counsel

A Delhi court on Tuesday dismissed the plea of Mukesh Singh, one of the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case, seeking quashing of his death penalty and asked BCI to give appropriate sensitisation exercise to his counsel.

Additional Sessions Judge Dharmendra Rana dismissed Singh's plea claiming he was arrested from Rajasthan and brought to Delhi on December 17, 2012, and was not present in the city on December 16, when the crime took place.

The public prosecutor told the court that Singh's plea is frivolous and a tactic to delay the scheduled hanging.

The plea also alleged that Singh was tortured inside the Tihar Jail.

Meanwhile, the court asked the Bar Council of India (BCI) to give appropriate sensitisation exercise to Singh's counsel and said that time was a judicial entity to be sagaciously spent.

Time is a precious judicial entity and required to be sagaciously spent, said the court adding, that some mischievous brains were projecting misplaced notion that there is premium over dishonesty and mendacity in this country.

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.

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

A 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who came to be known as 'Nirbhaya' (fearless), 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 the Tihar Jail days after the trial began in the case.

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