New Delhi: Soon after President Ram Nath Kovind rejected the mercy petition of Vinay Kumar Sharma, one of the convicts in the Nirbhaya case, another convict, Akshay Thakur, filed a mercy plea before the President on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the Tihar jail authorities, on Saturday, approached the Delhi High Court challenging a trial court’s order staying the execution of the four convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape-cum-murder case.
The jail authorities have challenged the trial court’s Friday order, which had stayed the execution of the convicts till further orders.
According to Sandeep Goel, the director general of prison, in view of rejection of the mercy petition of Vinay Kumar Sharma by the President, Tihar jail is approaching the Patiala House court for fixing the date of execution in respect to all the four convicts.
On Saturday, Akshay Thakur, one of the convicts in the Nirbhaya case, filed a mercy plea before President Kovind.
Earlier in the day, the President rejected the mercy plea of Sharma.
This is for the second time that the execution of the death warrants has been deferred. The first order for execution of death sentence, issued on January 7 for January 22, was stayed on January 17.
Mukesh Kumar Singh, 32, Pawan Gupta, 25, Vinay Kumar Sharma, 26, and Akshay Thakur, 31, were scheduled to be hanged on Feb. 1 at 6 am.
The Tihar jail administration has completed all formalities for their execution.
The hangman, Pawan Jallad, requisitioned for the hanging, has even carried out a dry run of the hanging and has been housed in the jail premises.
The second warrant, issued on January 17, for February 1, was stayed on Friday.
Advocate A.P. Singh, the counsel for the three convicts — Pawan, Vinay, and Akshay — had urged the court to adjourn the matter ‘sine die’ saying their legal remedies were yet to be exhausted.
With Mr Singh contending that their legal remedies were yet to be exhausted, the hanging date remains uncertain.
As of now, Mukesh has exhausted all his legal remedies including the clemency plea which was dismissed by President Kovind on January 17 and the appeal against the rejection was thrown out by the Supreme Court on January 29.
The curative petitions of Vinay Kumar Sharma and Akshay have also been rejected by the apex court.
