Delhi HC Refuses To Stay Death Warrant Against Nirbhaya Case Convict

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday  refused to set aside the death warrant issued by a trial court against Mukesh Singh, one of the convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case.

A division bench of Justices Manmohan and Sangita Dhingra Sehgal instead asked his counsel to apprise the trial court about the developments that had taken place after the January 7 order. “Apprise the trial court about the pending mercy plea,” the bench said.

The Delhi government had earlier told the court that four convicts can “surely not be hanged” at 7 am on on January 22 as a mercy petition filed by Singh is pending.

This came a day after the Supreme Court dismissed the curative petition of two death row convicts, paving the way for their hanging along with two other convicts. Vinay Kumar Sharma (26) and Mukesh Singh (32) had filed a curative petition in SC after a Delhi court on January 7 issued a death warrant against them and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) and Pawan Gupta (25) and announced January 22 as the date of execution.

The trial court, while issuing the death warrant on January 7, had observed that there was no curative or mercy petition pending in any forum.