4 convicts in Nirbhaya case to be hanged on January 22, says court By Udayan Kishor

A Delhi court ordered on Tuesday that four convicts in the sensational 2012 Nirbhaya Gang rape and murder case will be hanged on January 22 at 7 am in Tihar jail, saying "sufficient time and opportunity" was given to them to "exercise and exhaust their legal remedies".

The order was pronounced by Additional Sessions Judge Satish Kumar Arora who issued the death warrants against the four death row convicts -- Mukesh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31).

Their review petitions have been dismissed by the Supreme Court for the heinous crime committed by them seven years ago when the nation had come out on streets demanding exemplary punishment to them.

"As is apparent from the record, sufficient time and opportunity was given to the convicts to exercise and exhaust their remedies as available to them under the law," the court said.

It added that either the remedies have been exercised and exhausted by the convicts or have not been resorted to despite being afforded sufficient time and opportunity.

"In these given facts and circumstances when reasonable time and opportunity has been afforded to the convicts to exercise their remedies, there is nothing to delay any further in passing orders on the applications seeking issuance of death warrants," the court said.

It further said, "Keeping in view the above, the application preferred by the applicant are disposed of with directions that warrant to cause the sentence of death to be carried into effect are separately issued with the directions to the concerned jail Superintendent, Tihar jail to carry the death sentence of the convicts into execution of January 22, 2020 at 7 am."
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."