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A Delhi court has once again deferred till further order the hanging of four death row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case pending disposal of a convict’s mercy plea.
All the convicts in the case were to be hanged together on Tuesday at 6 am.
The execution of their death warrants has now been deferred thrice due to delays in exhausting legal remedies.
Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana said the death sentence cannot be executed pending disposal of mercy petition of convict Pawan Gupta.
“Despite stiff resistance from the victim’s side, I am of the opinion that any condemned convict must not meet his Creator with a grievance in his bosom that the courts of the country have not acted fairly in granting him an opportunity to exhaust his legal remedies,” the judge said.
“As a cumulative effect of the discussion, I am of the opinion that the death sentence cannot be executed pending the disposal of the mercy petition of the convict. It is hereby directed that the execution of death warrants against all the convicts, scheduled for March 3 at 6 am, is deferred till further orders,” the judge added.
The court passed the order on Pawan’s plea seeking to stay the execution as he has filed a mercy petition before the President .
While it was reserving the order on Pawan’s fresh plea to stay the death warrant for Tuesday morning, the court rapped the convict’s lawyer for acting so late in filing the curative and mercy pleas.
Pawan’s curative plea was rejected by the Supreme Court earlier in the day.
The trial court had earlier in the day dismissed Pawan’s and co-accused Akshay Kumar Singh’s applications for staying their death warrants.
It may be recalled that the court had on February 17 ordered that the four convicts — Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Kumar Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) — be hanged on March 3 after it issued fresh death warrants, observing that deferring the execution any further would be “sacrilegious” to the rights of the victim for expeditious justice.
It had directed that the four men be hanged by neck on March 3 at 6 am until they are dead.
Meanwhile, In her reaction to yet another delay, Nirbhaya’s mother Asha Devi said no matter what the convicts do, they will be hanged for their crime.”This shows the failure of our system. The whole world is watching how justice is being delayed in India,” she told reporters.
It is the third time that the hanging of the four convicts has been deferred.
Asha Devi said she “loses hope every day” but the convicts will be hanged no matter what they do.
“I lose hope every day but I stand tall everyday. They would have to be hanged. There could not have been a worse case than Nirbhaya but still I am struggling to get justice. The courts are sitting and watching the drama,” she added.
