Nirbhaya case: Mukesh Kumar moves SC challenging mercy plea’s rejection

Team Udayavani, Jan 25, 2020, 3:29 PM IST

New Delhi: One of the death row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya murder and gang-rape case on Saturday moved the Supreme Court seeking judicial review of the rejection of mercy petition by the President.

The petition has been filed by convict Mukesh Kumar Singh (32) whose mercy plea was dismissed by President Ram Nath Kovind on January 17.

The warrant for execution of death sentence for the four convicts has been fixed on February 1 at 6 am.

Mukesh had moved the mercy petition after the Supreme Court had dismissed his curative petition against his conviction and death sentence.

Along with his, the apex court had also rejected the curative petition of another death row convict Akshay Kumar (31).

Other two convicts Pawan Gupta (25) and Vinay Kumar Sharma are yet to file curative petitions before the Supreme Court.

The 23-year-old paramedic student, referred to as Nirbhaya, was gang-raped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012, in a moving bus in south Delhi by six people before she was thrown out on the road. She was flown to a hospital in Singapore where she died.

Earlier in the day, a Delhi court said no further directions were required on a plea by the lawyer of the death row convicts in the case alleging the prison authorities were not handing over certain documents required to file mercy and curative petitions, and disposed of the petition.

Additional sessions Judge Ajay Kumar Jain said the convicts’ lawyer can take pictures of the relevant documents, notebook and paintings or sketches from the Tihar jail authorities.

The court noted that the jail authorities had already complied with the request made by the convicts by supplying the documents whatever was lying with them.