Lawyer of 2012 Delhi gangrape death row convicts files plea seeking stay on 1 Feb executions, claims all four can't be hanged till legal remedies run out

The advocate of the death row convicts in the 2012 Delhi gangrape and murder case on Thursday moved a Delhi court seeking a stay on their executions scheduled for 1 February, saying legal remedies of some of them are yet to be availed. The plea was mentioned before Special Judge AK Jain who said it will be heard later in the day.

2012 Nirbhaya Case: Lawyer of the convicts, AP Singh moves a plea in Delhi's Patiala House Court seeking a stay on the date of the execution, which is February 1 pic.twitter.com/tw0Dk6CmFl

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On behalf of the convicts, advocate AP Singh, filed the petition in Delhi’s Patiala House Court claiming that according to the Delhi Prison Rules, none of the four convicts in the same crime can be hanged till the last convict has exhausted all his legal options including the mercy petition. The last-minute petitions have been widely seen as desperate attempts by the convicts to stall their impending executions. The delay has been criticised by many, including the victim’s parents. [caption id=“attachment_3425280” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] The four death row convicts in the 2012 Delhi gangrape and murder case are scheduled to be hanged on 1 February. PTI[/caption] Also on Thursday, the Supreme Court will hear the curative petition of another convict , Akshay Thakur, who is seeking commutation of his death sentence to life imprisonment. A five-judge bench of the apex court, headed by Justice NV Ramana is expected to hear his appeal shortly on Thyrsday. The curative petition stated that the apex court should set aside the 5 May, 2017, order, which upheld the death sentence of the convicts. “Modify the sentence of the petitioner, to life imprisonment as it serves all the purposes that the death penalty claims to serve and protects society from the impending reality in the near-future in which torture and murder are equated with justice as a panacea for all social evils,” the petition said. The plea said that lack of criminal antecedents, erroneous reliance on deterrence, and the probability of reformation, socio-economic circumstances, non-consideration of constitution bench judgment, were not considered by the courts while awarding his client to death. In December 2019, the top court had dismissed Akshay’s review petition. The 23-year-old paramedic student was gang raped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of 16-17 December, 2012, in a moving bus in south Delhi by six people before being thrown out on the road. She passed away on 29 December, 2012, at the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore. With inputs from PTI