Akshay Thakur Singh, Mukesh, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma were found guilty in the 2012 gang-rape, torture and killing of a young medical student in Delhi. (Photo Credit: Composite Image)
New Delhi:
India took one step closer to getting justice for the woman many called 'India's Daughter' after her rape and murder shook the nation back in the year 2012. A Delhi court on Tuesday issued death warrants to the four convicts in the sensational Nirbhaya Gang rape and murder case. According to the death warrants issued by Additional Sessions Judge Satish Kumar Arora, the four death row convicts - Mukesh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) - will be hanged on January 22 at 7 am in Tihar jail. The death warrants were later delivered to the Tihar jail, where all four are under judicial custody, to begin the process for the execution process.
The convicts were produced before the court through video conferencing.
The court said the convicts can use their legal remedies within 14 days. AP Singh, lawyer of convicts, confirmed that they will file a curative petition in the Supreme Court.
The verdict came after the parents of the victim moved the court seeking to expedite the procedure to hang all the four convicted in the case and also demanded issuance of death warrant against them.
During the hearing, the prosecution said there was no application pending before any court or the President right now by any of the convicts and the review petition of all the convicts was dismissed by the Supreme Court.
While urging the court to issue the death warrants, the prosecution said, "In between the issuance and the execution of death warrants, if the convicts want to file curative petitions, they can do so."
The counsel for two of the convicts - Mukesh and Vinay - said they were in the process of filing curative petition in the Supreme Court.
When the hearing commenced, advocate M L Sharma appeared before the court and said that he was representing Mukesh. However, amicus curiae Vrinda Grover, who on the last date was appointed by the court to represent Mukesh, said Sharma had no authority to represent him.
The court heard the arguments from both of them and directed Sharma to produce Vakalatnama (document empowering lawyer) showing that Mukesh authorised him.
After the court reserved the order for 3.30 pm on issuance of death warrants, Mukesh's mother entered the court room crying and urged the court to show mercy. The court refused to entertain her. Talking to media persons outside the courtroom, she said her son was framed because he was poor.
The court interacted with all the convicts through video conferencing from Tihar jail. The media was not allowed inside the video conferencing room.
After the court passed the order, the lawyers and family members of the convicts came out and informed the media about court's order.
Victim's parents said they were satisfied with the order.
"My daughter has got justice. Execution of the four convicts will empower the women of the country. This decision will strengthen the trust of people in the judicial system," Nirbhaya's mother Asha Devi said.
The trial court had earlier directed Tihar jail authorities to seek within a week response from the four death row convicts as to whether they were filing mercy pleas against their executions with the President of India.
It was hearing the applications moved by Nirbhaya's parents and the prosecution (Delhi government) seeking issuance of death warrant against the convict.
The Supreme Court on December 18 had dismissed the plea of Akshay seeking review of its decision, saying review petition is not "re-hearing of appeal over and over again" and it had already considered the mitigating and aggravating circumstances while upholding the death penalty.
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 inside a moving bus in south Delhi by six persons before being thrown out on the road. She died on December 29, 2012 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.
On July 9 last year, the apex court had dismissed the review pleas filed by the other three convicts in the case, saying no grounds have been made out by them for review of the 2017 verdict.
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 them by the Delhi High Court and the trial court.
