The prosecution on Saturday contested before a Delhi court the plea of Vinay Sharma, one of the death-row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya case, that he was “mentally unstable”, saying the injuries sustained by him were “self-inflicted”.
Public Prosecutor Irfan Ahmed told the court, “The convict is regularly examined. The vitals are intact. All injuries are self-inflicted and superficial.”
Ahmed made his submissions on the plea filed by Sharma seeking high-level medical treatment.
After the conclusion of arguments on behalf of the prosecution and the convict, Additional Session Judge Dharmendra Rana reserved his order on the application.
During the hearing, Ahmed apprised the court that Sharma, who complained of pain in the right hand and head, was attended to immediately following his call for medical aid.
The counsel contended that Sharma subsequently rammed his head on the wall of his cell in Tihar jail and was given medical aid.
The prison authorities also submitted the CCTV footage in the court, saying Sharma’s claim was a “bundle of distorted facts”.
Ahmed said there is no medical history of mental instability of Sharma as claimed by the convict’s counsel AP Singh.
“He (Sharma) is not medically unfit, not recognising mother and doctors are all false allegations. He had made two phone calls recently to his mother and his lawyer, so why is his lawyer claiming that the convict is not even in the position to identify his mother,” he added.
In the previous hearing, Singh had told the court that his client suffers from mental illness, schizophrenia and has failed to recognise his counsel and family.
In the proceedings today, Singh submitted that the jail authorities were mistreating his client and facts were being concealed.
“There has been concealment of the facts by the authorities. The facts which suited their case have been provided while the rest of the facts have been concealed. The time when Vinay was not able to recognise his mother has been concealed and that CCTV footage has not been provided,” he said.
On February 17, the court fixed March 3 as the fresh date of the hanging of the four convicts in the case – Vinay Sharma, Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta and Akshay Thakur.
A 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who came to be known as ”Nirbhaya”, was gang-raped and brutally assaulted on the night of December 16, 2012, in a moving bus in South Delhi. She died of her injuries a fortnight later at a Singapore hospital.
Six people, including the four convicts, Ram Singh and a juvenile — were named as accused.
The trial of the five adult men began in a special fast-track court in March 2013.
Ram Singh, the prime accused, allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself in Tihar jail during the trial. 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 four were sentenced to death in September 2013 by the trial court.