Supreme Court Dismisses Nirbhaya Convict's Plea Against Rejection Of Mercy Petition

The Supreme Court dismissed the plea filed by Nirbhaya convict Mukesh Singh over the rejection of his mercy petition by President Ram Nath Kovind on Wednesday. Rejecting the plea, the Supreme Court said that there is no merit in the contention, alleged torture can't be a ground, all documents were placed before the President and he had taken them into consideration. Reacting on the order, Nirbhaya’s family said that we have been fighting for the justice for past seven years and it’s time for the final sentence. “There should be no delay in February 1st hanging,” Nirbhaya’s mother Asha Devi said soon after the order. Both the parents were present in the courtroom while Justice R Banumathi pronounced the order. With this rejection, all legal remedies of death row convict Mukesh Singh have come to an end.

A three-judge bench headed by Justice R Banumathi said that expeditious disposal of mercy plea by the President doesn't mean non-application of mind by him. The court also said that alleged sufferings in prison can't be grounds to challenge the rejection of mercy petition.

Last week on Saturday, advocate Vrinda Grover, who is representing Singh said that, "A petition has been filed under Article 32 for judicial review of the manner of rejection of the mercy petition in terms of the judgement of Supreme Court in Shatrughan Chauhan case." The development came after the Centre moved the Supreme Court urging to seeking modification of the Shatrughan Chauhan judgment on rights available to death row convicts.

The Supreme Court recently dismissed the curative petitions of other two convicts—Vinay and Mukesh Singh (32). Mukesh’s mercy petition was rejected by the President earlier this month. 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.

Meanwhile, a dummy execution of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case was performed at Tihar Jail on Monday, prison officials said. This was the third instance of the jail authorities performing the dummy execution in order to test the equipment which will be used to hang the convicts, they said. The procedure was carried out in the afternoon and will be repeated over the next few days, the officials said, adding that the ropes were procured from Meerut in Uttar Pradesh.

The dummies were created using sacks filled with wheat and sand as per the weight of the convicts, a senior jail official said.