No Hanging of Nirbhaya Convicts Till Further Notice

A few hours before they were to hang, the 4 convicts of the Nirbhaya case got another last-minute reprieve, when a Delhi court deferred their execution indefinitely.

Thus, the convicts Pawan Gupta, Akshay Singh, Mukesh Singh and Vinay Sharma will not be hanged until further orders. Earlier their death sentence has already been postponed in view of curative and mercy petitions. 

AP Singh, lawyer of one of the convicts said, “The death warrant has been cancelled and no new date has been given”.

Nirbhaya’s parents demanded that the four men should be hanged on Saturday as scheduled, instead of allowing them to exploit the law to delay the process. 

Her Mother said, “I have been sitting here (in the court) since 10 am. If the court wanted to spare these criminals again, then why take so long? Why make us sit and hope for so long? We waited all this time, with hope... why not send us home?”

The mercy petition filed by a convict Vinay Sharma was the reason for the reprieve, as, under the rules, the convict has to be given 14 days till execution if the President rejects the petition today. Now, on the 13th day, another convict will file a mercy petition.

The convicts have filed multiple petitions to stall their hanging. Again on Friday a new petition was filed before the Supreme Court, but was rejected. Convict Pawan Gupta’s claim of being a minor at the time of the incident was dismissed by the Supreme Court for the second time. He had asked the court again to review its decision, even though he had been told that once rejected, it couldn’t be reviewed.

On January 22, at the government’s request for a change in the rules, so to prevent the convicts from ‘playing with the law’; the Supreme Court agreed to consider the amendments. The government has also suggested a time limit to use their legal options, so that their death sentence is not delayed endlessly.

At first, the date of execution was fixed on January 22. But after Mukesh Singh filed a mercy petition, a Delhi court set a new date that is February 1st at 6 am. The hangman has also arrived at Tihar jail in Delhi, where the convicts were to be hanged together. As the law does not permit separate dates of hanging for the same crime.

It was on 16th December 2012, the young woman who later came to be known as “Nirbhaya” was gang-raped by 6 men on a moving bus across Delhi, tortured with an iron rod and finally thrown off the vehicle. 13 days later, she died on December 29.