(Updating earlier story)
New Delhi (NVI): The hanging of four convicts in 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape case, that was scheduled to take place tomorrow, has been put off till further orders by a Delhi court here. This is the third time that the execution has been deferred.
The deferment of execution of death warrant was ordered by the Patiala Court judge. The court said that the death sentence cannot be executed tomorrow as the mercy petition of convict Pawan Kumar Gupta is pending before President. Gupta sent a mercy plea to President Ram Nath Kovind after the Supreme Court rejected his curative plea earlier in the day.
In his curative petition before the apex court, convict Pawan (25) claimed juvenility to seek commutation of sentence to life imprisonment.
The hanging of four convicts in the case — Akshay Thakur (31), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Mukesh Singh — was scheduled to take place tomorrow in Tihar Jail at 6 am
However, the latest development in the case comes after a Delhi court had refused to stay execution of death sentences of the four rape convicts in the case, earlier in the day.
A five-judge bench headed by Justice N V Ramana said no case is made out for re-examining the conviction and the punishment of the convict.
Pawan was the last death row convict in the case to move the apex court with his curative petition — the final legal remedy available to a person.
The Supreme Court has already rejected the curative petitions of the remaining three convicts.
On December 16, 2012, a 23-year-old woman was gang-raped and assaulted inside a moving bus in South Delhi by six persons, before being thrown out on the road. She later died on December 29, 2012, at a hospital in Singapore.
