Nirbhaya: SC declines plea of death-row convict Mukesh seeking restoration of legal remedies

The Supreme Court Monday refused to entertain the plea of Mukesh Singh, one of the four death-row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case, seeking restoration of legal remedies alleging that his earlier counsel misled and forced him to sign the papers.

A bench comprising Justices Arun Mishra and M R Shah heard submissions of lawyer M L Sharma, appearing for Mukesh, and rejected the plea by terming it as "not maintainable" in view of the fact that both the review and the curative pleas in the case have been dismissed.

The apex court had on July 9, 2018 dismissed the review plea of Mukesh 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 the convicts Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31).

Mukesh in his fresh plea had sought the CBI probe into alleged "criminal conspiracy" and "fraud" hatched by the Centre, the Delhi government and advocate Vrinda Grover, who is the amicus curiae in the case.

It said: "Petitioner (Mukesh) is victim of criminal conspiracy and fraud played and hatched jointly by the R-1 (Ministry of Home Affairs), R-2 (Delhi government) and R-3 (Vrinda Grover) and other advocate who appeared in the sessions court, high court and the Supreme Court in the petitioner's death warrant case.

"They compelled him to sign various papers under threat of session court order (which was never issued by the session court) stating that the court has directed her to secure various signed documents from him to file various petitions, including curative petition, on his behalf in the high court and the Supreme Court in his death sentence case."
The lawyer said: "The signature (of the convict) was obtained by threatening him."