Nirbhaya convicts: President rejects Akshay Thakur's mercy plea
President Ram Nath Govind on Wednesday (February 5) rejected the mercy petition of Akshay Thakur – one of the four accused in the the Nribhaya case. After his curative plea was rejected by the court, he filed a mercy plea before the president a few days ago.
Earlier the President rejected the other other accused — Mukesh Singh and Vinay Kumar Sharma — mercy petitions.
As of now, three of the four convicts have exhausted all their options. The fourth, Pawan Gupta, has not filed a curative petition, which he still can if he chooses to.
Also read | Nirbhaya case: HC cracks whip; all convicts to be executed together
As per law, if multiple people have been sentenced to death for the same crime, they cannot be executed separately.
On Wednesday, the Delhi High Court dismissed the Centre’s plea challenging the trial court order staying the execution of all the four convicts in 2012 Delhi gang-rape and murder case.
The court also ruled that all the four convicts cannot be executed separately. Justice Suresh Kumar Kait directed them to file all the mercy applications they want within a week.
Post one week, the proceedings against them for the execution of death warrant will be initiated, he added.
Also read | Can’t be executed separately: Nirbhaya convicts tell Delhi HC
A 23-year-old paramedic student, referred to as Nirbhaya, was raped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a moving bus in south Delhi by six persons, before being thrown out on the road. She died on December 29, 2012, in Singapore’s Mount Elizabeth Hospital.
One of the six accused in the case, Ram Singh, allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail. A juvenile, who was among the accused, was convicted by a juvenile justice board and was released from a reformation home after serving a three-year term.
The top court, in its 2017 verdict, had upheld the capital punishment awarded to the convicts by the Delhi High Court and the trial court.
