One of the death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape case Vinay Sharma approached the Delhi High Court on Friday against the Delhi government's decision to forward his mercy plea when Model Code of Conduct was in force ahead of the elections here.
The plea alleges constitutional irregularities done during the Model Code of Conduct by the Government of Delhi. The convict's advocate AP Singh had recently approached Election Commission also with the same prayers.
The plea states that the Model Code of Conduct came into force on January 7 but the Delhi government sent this mercy plea to the President on January 30 with the recommendation of rejection. The President rejected the mercy petition on February 1.
The plea further alleged that the Model Code of Conduct was in place in Delhi when the mercy petition was rejected by minister Manish Sisodia, which made him "ineligible" to quash it.
Convict Vinay Sharma recently approached Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal through his lawyer AP Singh, seeking to commute the death sentence to life imprisonment.
Advocate Singh had filed a petition under Sections 432 and 433 of CrPC seeking to suspend death sentence. Singh said that the convict does not deserve the extreme punishment of death, which is reserved for the 'rarest of rare' cases where the alternative option of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed. Considering the positive steps towards reformation, his young age, poor socio-economic circumstances, the petitioner has prayed to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment.
The trial court had on March 5, fixed the date of execution of the convicts as March 20.
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Advocate AP Singh representing the three convicts (Akshay, Vinay and Pawan) is moving various petitions in different legal fora and going from pillar to post to delay the execution and hanging of the convicts.
The case pertains to the brutal gang-rape and killing 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 the national capital. The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later.
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