BREAKING: No hanging of Nirbhaya convicts tomorrow, court stays execution for now
Convicts in the Nirbhaya rape and murder case will not be hanged tomorrow. A Delhi court on Monday stayed the execution of the four convicts and deferred the matter till further orders. The convicts -- Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Kumar Singh, and Pawan Gupta -- were scheduled to be hanged on March 3 at 6 AM.
Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana said the death sentence cannot be executed pending disposal of mercy petition of convict Pawan Gupta.
"Despite stiff resistance from the victim's side, I am of the opinion that any condemned convict must not meet his Creator with a grievance in his bosom that the courts of the country have not acted fairly in granting him an opportunity to exhaust his legal remedies," the judge said.
"As a cumulative effect of the discussion, I am of the opinion that the death sentence cannot be executed pending the disposal of the mercy petition of the convict. It is hereby directed that the execution of death warrants against all the convicts, scheduled for March 3 at 6 AM, is deferred till further orders," the judge added.
President Ram Nath Kovind today rejected the mercy petition of Pawan, one of the convicts in the case. Earlier in the day, Pawan's curative plea was rejected by the Supreme Court. The court had also dismissed Pawan's and Akshay Kumar Singh's applications for staying their death warrants.
A 23-year-old woman, who came to be known as 'Nirbhaya' (fearless), was gang-raped and savagely assaulted in a moving bus in south Delhi on December 16, 2012. She succumbed to injuries days later, on December 29, at the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore where she was taken for better medical treatment.
(With PTI inputs)
ALSO READ | President Kovind rejects convict Pawan's mercy plea
