The Home Ministry has received mercy petition of 2012 Delhi gang-rape case convict Mukesh Singh from Delhi government and it is under process.
As per sources quoted by ANI, the Home Ministry will now review the death petition after the Delhi government on Thursday rejected the mercy plea of 2012 Delhi gang-rape case convict. The mercy plea was then forwarded to the Lieutenant Governor, Anil Baijal, who has now sent it to Union Ministry of Home Affairs.
The convicts were sentenced to death for raping Nirbhaya, a 23-year-old woman in a moving bus in the national capital on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012.
The victim, who was named Nirbhaya, succumbed to injuries at a hospital in Singapore where she had been airlifted for medical treatment.
Yesterday, the Delhi High Court today refused to set aside the death warrant against the four convicts after the state government said their execution “will surely not take place” on January 22 because of a mercy plea filed by one of them.
Vinay Sharma, Mukesh Kumar, Akshay Kumar Singh and Pawan Gupta were to be hanged on January 22, 2020 in Tihar jail, after the trial court had signed a death warrant, seven years after the horrific crime took place.
Mukesh Singh filed a mercy petition soon after this. Even after it is rejected, a convict has to be given 14 days’ notice before execution. Right now, it is with the Home Ministry.
Under the rules, said Tihar jail, it would have to wait for the mercy plea to be decided by the President before executing the death warrant. The fate of a death convict comes to finality only after his mercy plea is rejected by the President.
None of the four convicts can be executed on January 22 unless the mercy plea is decided, the court was told.
Through his petition, the convict has informed the court that his mercy petition is pending before the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi and the President of India and he should be given a minimum 14 days’ notice between the rejection of his mercy petition and scheduled date of execution.
Earlier, Supreme Court dismissed curative petitions of the two death row convicts, including Mukesh Singh, in the 2012 gang-rape case.