Death sentence cannot be executed pending disposal of mercy petition: Delhi court stays Nirbhaya convicts' execution

A Delhi court on Monday stayed for the third time the Death sentence of four convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case observing that they cannot be executed while a mercy petition is pending before the President.

"As a cumulative effect of the abovesaid discussion, I am of the opinion that the death sentence cannot be executed pending the disposal or the mercy petition of the convict. It is hereby directed that the execution of death warrants against all the convicts, scheduled for March 3, 2020, at 6.00 am, is deferred till further orders," Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana said in the order.

The court said that despite stiff resistance from the victim's side, the court was of the opinion that any condemned convict must not "meet his creator with a grievance in his bosom" that the courts of this country have not acted fairly in granting him an opportunity to exhaust his legal remedies.

Earlier today, the court had reserved the order on a petition filed by Pawan Gupta seeking a stay on the execution as his mercy petition is pending before the President of India, after hearing arguments from all the sides in the matter.

The execution of convicts -- Vinay Sharma, Akshay Singh Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh Singh -- was earlier scheduled to take place on the morning of March 3.

Earlier today, the court had also dismissed an application by Akshay Singh Thakur seeking a stay on the execution contending that he had filed a "complete" mercy petition and that the previous one, which was rejected by the President, did not have the complete facts.

President Ram Nath Kovind had on February 5 rejected the mercy petition of convict Akshay Thakur. So far, mercy petitions of Vinay Sharma and Mukesh Singh have also been rejected.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court today also dismissed a curative petition filed by Pawan Kumar Gupta seeking the commutation of his death sentence to life imprisonment.

The case pertains to the gangrape and brutalising of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, by six people including a juvenile in Delhi. The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later.