The Supreme Court will today hear a petition filed by one of the four Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder convicts, Mukesh Kumar, challenging the rejection of his mercy petition by the President.
The matter will come up before a bench of Justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bhushan and AS Bopanna.
Chief Justice SA Bobde on Monday said the petition filed by Mukesh should be listed for an urgent hearing in view of their execution scheduled on February 1 in Tihar jail in Delhi.
The hearing of the plea was fixed after Justice Bobde had directed that the plea be mentioned before the officer concerned for the date.
Mukesh had approached the apex court on Saturday seeking an urgent hearing against the rejection of his mercy petition by President Ram Nath Kovind.
Earlier on Monday, the bench headed by Justice Bobde and comprising Justices BR Gavai and Surya Kant said, “If somebody is going to be hanged on February 1, then it is the top priority, nothing can be more urgent than this.”
The warrant for execution of the death sentence has been scheduled for February 1 at 6 am by a Delhi court on January 17 after the rejection of the mercy plea of Mukesh by the President a day earlier.
The Supreme Court had rejected curative petitions of two of the convicts–Mukesh and Vinay Kumar, saying that no case was made out. Mukesh then moved the mercy plea.
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 the commission of the crime and was let out after serving a three-year remand in a juvenile justice home