New Delhi: The Tihar Jail authorities will move Patiala House court for fixing fresh date of execution of the four Nirbhaya case convicts after rejection Wednesday of mercy plea of Pawan Gupta by President Ram Nath Kovind, officials said.
The president had already rejected the mercy petitions of the other three convicts in the case.
Meanwhile the Delhi High Court declined Wednesday to entertain a plea seeking directions to the NHRC to intervene and enquire into the mental and physical state of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case.
A bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice C Hari Shankar said the petition was not maintainable as it should have been first filed in the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). Asking the petitioner to move the NHRC, the bench disposed of his plea.
The petitioner, advocate A Rajarajan, had claimed that the four convicts – Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan Kumar Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) – have been kept in solitary confinement under fear of death ‘on the whims and fancies’ of the authorities and it can affect their mental stability.
The petition had also referred to the allegations that the four were facing physical abuse in the prison.
Meanwhile the father of the 2012 Delhi gangrape victim Wednesday expressed hope that the convicts will be hanged this month, after President Ram Nath Kovind rejected the mercy petition of Pawan Kumar Gupta, one of the four men facing the gallows in the case.
“He has one option left – that is to challenge the mercy plea in Supreme Court as the others have done. Let’s see what happens next, but we are confident of getting justice,” Nirbhaya’s father said.
PTI