- Home
- Live Blog
- Breaking News
- Top Headlines
- Cities
- NE News
- Sentinel Media
- Sports
- Education
- Jobs
NEW DELHI: Execution of convicts in Nirbhaya case has been deferred until further notice, announced a Delhi High Court. The convicts were about to be hanged on March 3 at 6 am.
The decision was made as convict Pawan Kumar Gupta has filed a mercy plea before the President of India. The decision is still pending.
The case pertains to the gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old girl in the national capital in December 2012. Out of the four convicts, Pawan was the only one who has not yet availed of the remedy of either curative or mercy petitions, which will be the last judicial and constitutional resort available to him.
On February 13, observing that any condemned convict is entitled to avail legal aid till his last breath, a Delhi court gave a death-row convict in Nirbhaya rape and murder case liberty to choose his own counsel after his lawyer refused to represent him in the matter. During the hearing on the issuance of a fresh death warrant, Advocate A.P. Singh apprised the court that he no longer represents convict Pawan Gupta in the case.
The court reserves an opinion that any condemned convict is entitled legal aid till his last breath,” the judge stated. He gave Pawan the “liberty to choose” his counsel from the list of impaneled advocates of the Delhi State Legal Service Authority.
During the course of proceedings, lawyers representing Nirbhaya’s family said that the convicts are adopting “all kinds of delay tactics to avoid execution of death warrant”
On February 6, President Ram Nath Kovind on Wednesday rejected the mercy petition of Nirbhaya convict Akshay Kumar Singh, one of the four convicts in the Nirbhay gang-rape and murder case who has been given a death sentence. Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court on Wednesday, while disposing of the Centre’s plea in the case, noted that “the convicts cannot be executed separately”.