A Delhi court on Tuesday asked the four death-row convicts in the Nirbhaya gang- rape and murder case to respond to a plea by the victim’s parents for issuance of fresh death warrant against the prisoners.
Issuing notice to the convicts, Additional Session Judge Dharmender Rana said the court will hear to matter tomorrow.
In their application, Nirbhaya’s parents submitted that the condemned prisoners were making a mockery of the law and frustrating the execution of the sentence.
The application was filed after the Supreme Court gave liberty to the authorities to approach the trial court for a fresh date for the hanging of the convicts.
Earlier in the day, an apex court bench of Justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bhushan and A S Bopanna asked the convicts to furnish their response on the Centre’s appeal challenging the Delhi High Court order which dismissed its plea against stay on their execution.
It observed that the pendency of the appeal filed by the Centre and Delhi government before it would not be an impediment for the trial court in issuing a fresh date for the hanging of the convicts.
The Supreme Court would hear the matter of February 13.
Appearing for the Centre, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted, “Execution of Nirbhaya case convicts is not for enjoyment, we are executing the mandate of the law.”
Earlier, Mehta had told the court that the “nation’s patience is being tested” in the matter and the bench will have to lay down a law on the issue.
On January 31, the trial court had stayed “till further orders” the execution of the four convicts in the case — Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Kumar Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar (31), who are lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail.
A 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who came to be known as ”Nirbhaya”, was gang-raped and savagely assaulted on the night of December 16, 2012, in a moving bus in South Delhi. She died of her injuries a fortnight later in a Singapore hospital.
Six people, including the four convicts, Ram Singh and a juvenile — were named as accused.
Ram Singh, the prime accused, allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself in Tihar jail days after the trial began. The juvenile, who was said to be the most brutal of the attackers, was put in a correctional home for three years.
The juvenile was released in 2015 and sent to an undisclosed location amid concerns over a threat to his life. He, when released, was 20 years old.
The trial of the four adults began in a special fast-track court in March 2013 and they were sentenced to death in September 2013 by the trial court.
Meanwhile on Tuesday, convict Sharma approached the Supreme Court against the rejection of his mercy petition by the President.
Sharma, through his counsel A P Singh, also pleaded for the commutation of death sentence to life imprisonment.
President Ram Nath Kovind had on February 1 dismissed the mercy plea of Sharma.