The Delhi High Court on Wednesday said that all four convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape-murder case have to exhaust all legal remedies available to them within a week as it dismissed Centre's plea challenging trial court order which had stayed their execution.
After one week, the proceedings against them for the execution of a death warrant will be initiated, the court said.
The court also observed that the death warrant against all four convicts can't be executed separately. Delhi prison rules do not state that if mercy petition of one convict is pending, the execution of the other convicts can take place, the court said.
Nirbhaya's mother welcomed the decision and said, "I welcome Delhi High Court's verdict. It gives all 4 convicts 1 week to resort to all legal remedies available to them. After this, the convicts should be hanged soon."
The Centre had filed a plea challenging the January 31 order of Additional Sessions Judge, Patiala House Court, Dharmendra Rana. The Delhi court had on Friday stayed till further orders the hanging of three Nirbhaya gangrape-murder case death row convicts, that was scheduled for February 1.
While staying the execution, the Delhi court observed, "The Courts of this country cannot afford to adversely discriminate any convict, including death row convict, in pursuit of his legal remedies, by turning Nelson's eye towards him."
The three convicts - Akshay Kumar Singh, Pawan Gupta, and Vinay Kumar Sharma - had moved the court seeking a stay on their hanging. The fourth convict Mukesh Kumar Singh has exhausted all his legal remedies.
The four convicts were scheduled to be hanged at 6 AM on February 1 after a Delhi court issued death warrants against them in January.
This was the second death warrant issued for the four convicts as earlier death warrant was stayed when Mukesh filed a mercy petition to the President. The court had fixed January 22 as the hanging date.
A 23-year-old psychotherapy student, dubbed by media as 'Nirbhaya', was gang-raped and brutalised on a moving bus on December 16, 2012, before being dumped on the road. She was airlifted to Singapore where she died on December 29, 2012.
