Nirbhaya Case: Convicts to Hang on March 20 as Patiala House Court Issues Fresh Death Warrant

The executions of the four convicts had earlier been deferred thrice due to strategic filing of mercy pleas and curative petitions by the convicts.

New Delhi: The four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape case will be hanged at 5:30 AM on March 20 after Delhi’s Patiala House Court on Thursday issued a fresh death warrant in the case. The executions of the four convicts had earlier been deferred thrice due to strategic filing of mercy pleas and curative petitions by the convicts.

The development comes a day after the mercy petition of Pawan Gupta, one of the death-row convicts in the case was rejected by President Ram Nath Kovind prompting the Delhi government and the Tihar Jail authorities to move the trial court, seeking a fresh date for the execution of the four convicts.

The court had posted the matter for hearing at 2 PM on Thursday.

In its plea, the Delhi government had told the court that all legal remedies of the convicts in the Nirbhaya case have been exhausted and nothing is left now.

On Monday, the trial court had deferred till further order, the hanging of the convicts that was scheduled for Tuesday after Pawan filed the mercy plea before the President.

On February 17, the trial court had issued a fresh date, March 3 at 6 AM, for the execution of the four convicts-Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31)-in the Nirbhaya case.

The two earlier dates on which the convicts were to be executed were January 22 and February 1.

Apart from Pawan, President Kovind has already rejected the mercy petitions of Mukesh, Vinay and Akshay.

The 23-year-old physiotherapy student was brutally gang-raped and assaulted in a moving bus in South Delhi on December 16, 2012. She had died after a fortnight in a Singapore hospital.