Mukesh Singh, one of the four death-row convicts in the Nirbhaya case, has challenged the rejection of his mercy petition by President Ram Nath Kovind in the Supreme Court.
The convict had moved a curative petition in the top court after a Delhi court issued a death warrant in his name and had announced January 22 as the date of the execution. However, Singh’s curative petition was dismissed by the Supreme Court.
Singh, as his last resort, then approached the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind, to set aside the death penalty awarded by the court, which was eventually turned down by the President on January 17, 2020.
On the same day, a Delhi Court had issued fresh death warrants for the convicts in the case on February 1 at 6 am, quashing the January 22 death warrant.
Singh, along with three other convicts – Akshay Kumar, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma, had been sentenced to death along with three others in connection with the case.
On December 16, 2012, a paramedical student was gang-raped in a moving bus by six men in Delhi’s Munirka area. The student died at a Singapore hospital where she was airlifted for treatment. This incident triggered enormous public furore and media coverage demanding justice for the victim.
One of them, the key accused, Ram Singh, had allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail during the pendency of the case, while the sixth was a minor at the time of commission of the crime and was let out after serving a three-year remand in a juvenile justice home
Earlier in December, a plea was filed by the victim’s parents to expedite the death sentence of the four convicts.