A Delhi court on Tuesday issued death warrants against all four death row convicts in the 2012 Delhi gang-rape case.
The convicts are to be executed at 7 am on January 22.
The convicts’ lawyer AP Singh said they would file a curative petition in the Supreme Court within a day or two. “Five senior-most judges of the Supreme Court will hear it. There has been pressure of media, public and political pressure in this case since beginning. Unbiased probe could not take place in this case,” he said, ANI quoted.
The victim’s mother Asha Devi welcomed the court’s decision, saying: “My daughter has got justice. Execution of the four convicts will empower the women of the country. This decision will strengthen the trust of people in the judicial system.”
Badrinath Singh, the victim’s father, said: “I am happy with the court’s decision. The convicts will be hanged at 7 am on 22nd January. This decision will instill fear in people who commit such crimes.”
Delhi’s Commission for Women chief Swati MaliwaI said, “It is a win for all the ‘Nirbhayas’ living in this country. I salute Nirbhaya’s parents who fought for seven long years. Why has it taken seven years to punish these people? Why can’t this time period be reduced?”
During the hearing on Monday, the prosecution said there was no application pending before any court or the President right now by any of the convicts and the review petition of all the convicts was dismissed by the Supreme Court.
While urging the court to issue the death warrants, the prosecution said, “In between issuance and execution of death warrants of the convicts want to file curative petitions they can do so.“
The counsel for two of the convicts Mukesh and Vinay said they were in process of filing curative petition in the apex court.
Last month, a Delhi court had directed Tihar jail authorities to seek response from the four death row convicts in the case on whether they were filing mercy pleas against their executions with the President of India.
The Supreme Court, meanwhile, had dismissed the plea of Akshay Kumar Singh, one of the four convicts, saying review petition was not “re-hearing of appeal over and over again” and it had already considered the mitigating and aggravating circumstances while upholding the death penalty.
In December last year, the victim’s parents had approached the court to fast-track the procedure to hang all four convicts in the case.
The Supreme Court on December 12, 2018, dismissed a PIL seeking direction to the Centre to execute the death penalty awarded to the four convicts ― Mukesh, Pawan, Vinay and Akshay.
The December 2012 gang-rape victim, a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, was raped and brutalised in a moving bus in South Delhi by six people.
The woman had boarded the nearly vacant bus in Munirka in South Delhi along with her male friend on her way back home on December 16 that year. After raping and brutalising the woman and beating her friend, the assailants had thrown them out of the bus.
After receiving initial treatment in New Delhi for a few days, she was shifted to the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore, where she succumbed to injuries on December 29, 2012.