Delaying Tactic Again? Nirbhaya Case Convict Mukesh Singh Moves SC Over Mercy Plea Rejection

Vinay Sharma, Mukesh Singh, Akshay Kumar Singh, and Pawan Gupta the four convicts in the 2012 Delhi gang-rape case are set to be hanged in the Tihar Jail on February 1.

But even after the death warrants have been issued against them the four men and their lawyers have been engaging in delay tactics one after the other in order to stop the execution.

The latest delay tactic is by Mukesh Singh who has now filed a plea in the Supreme Court challenging the President of India's decision to reject his mercy plea. In his plea, Mukesh has also demanded the death warrant date on February 1 be set aside.

President Ram Nath Kovind has rejected convict Mukesh's mercy plea on December 17. His curative petition has already been dismissed by the Supreme Court.

Earlier in the day, a Delhi court on had rejected a petition by the lawyer of the death row convicts alleging the Tihar Jail authorities were not handing over some documents required to file mercy and curative petitions.

However, the public prosecutor told the court that the Tihar jail authorities have given all the relevant documents sought by the convicts. The convicts' lawyer AP Singh had also alleged that Vinay was being slow poisoned and was hospitalized, but his medical reports are not being supplied to him.

He also claimed that the diary and paintings of Vinay Kumar Sharma were also not given to him. Additional Sessions Judge Ajay Kumar Jain disposed of the petition saying the convicts' lawyer can take pictures of the relevant documents, diary, and paintings from the Tihar jail authorities.

Previously another convict Pawan Kumar Gupta had tried to delay the execution by filing a case in the Supreme Court claiming that he was a juvenile at the time of the crime and the High Court had not taken note of this fact.

The Delhi High Court had dismissed the same last year and fined lawyer AP Singh for wasting the time of the court. On Monday a Supreme Court bench comprising Justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bhushan and A S Bopanna dismissed the plea of convict Pawan Kumar Gupta and upheld the Delhi High Court verdict.

The four men along with another accused, Ram Singh and a juvenile were arrested in December 2012 for the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old paramedical student on a moving bus in Delhi. Ram Singh was found dead inside his jail cell in 2013 in an apparent suicide and the juvenile who was tried under the Juvenile Justice Act was released in December 2015.