Hanging of Nirbhaya convicts not on 1 Feb

Akshay Singh, one of the four convicts in the 2012 Delhi gang rape case has challenged his execution in the Supreme Court. Singh has used a last legal resort called the curative petition.

31-year-old Singh is the third convict in the case to challenge his hanging. This means that he is unlikely to eb hanged on 1 February as scheduled.

In December, the Supreme Court had rejected Singh’s petition seeking a review of his death sentence after he filed a plea that his hanging should not be carried out due to Hindu religious texts and the Delhi pollution crisis.

If the curative petition is rejected, Singh can send a mercy plea to President Ram Nath Kovind.

There has been a lot of criticism over the delay in the hanging of the four convicted for the gang rape and brutal assault on young paramedic in Delhi in 2012. Another convict Mukesh Kumar Singh, has also challenged the rejection of his mercy request..

Besides Akshay and Mukesh, two others Vinay Sharma, 26, and Pawan Gupta, 26, are due to be executed on Saturday at Delhi’s Tihar jail. A fifth convict was sent to a remand home and released as he was a juvenile at the time of the crime.

These last-minute petitions by the convicts are being seen as desperate attempts to delay their hanging. Many people have criticised this including parents of the young woman who was raped and left to die.
The government has asked the Supreme Court for a change in guidelines in death row cases to prevent convicts from delaying the sentence by exploiting legal options.

The issue has become political with the Centre accusing the Arvind Kejriwal government in Delhi of delaying justice. Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said the hanging has been delayed in the justice due to “negligence of the Delhi government”.

The hanging of the convicts in 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape case is now delayed because of Delhi government’s negligence. AAP is responsible for this delay in justice. – Prakash Javadekar, Union Minister

On 16 December 16, a 23-year-old medical student was gang-raped and savagely assaulted on a moving bus in South Delhi. She died of her injuries a fortnight later in a Singapore hospital.