New Delhi, March 2: A Delhi court on Monday 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.
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.
In the post-lunch hearing, the court pulled up Singh saying, “You are playing with fire, you should be cautious” and added “one wrong move by anybody, and you know the consequences”.
Tihar authorities, during the hearing, said the ball is in the government’s court after the filing of the mercy petition, and the judge has no role for now.
They said the President will seek a status report from the jail on Pawan’s mercy plea and when that happens, it will suo motu stay the execution.
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