Nirbhaya Case: Supreme Court to Hear Delhi Govt, Centre’s Plea Against High Court Verdict Staying Convicts’ Execution

A three-judge bench, comprising Justices R Bhanumathi, Ashok Bhushan and AS Bopanna, will hear the government's plea at 12:30 PM against the Delhi High Court's verdict.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court will on Friday hear the Centre and Delhi government’s appeal challenging Delhi High Court’s order dismissing their plea staying the four Nirbhaya convicts’ execution in the 2012 Delhi gangrape and murder case.

A three-judge bench, comprising Justices R Bhanumathi, Ashok Bhushan and AS Bopanna, will hear the government’s plea at 12:30 PM against the Delhi High Court’s verdict.

Hearing the matter, Justice Suresh Kumar Kait had on February 2 reserved order on the Centre’s plea. However, the central government moved the top court through its Additional Solicitor General KM Natraj seeking an urgent hearing on its appeal.

The Centre and the Delhi government had challenged the trial court’s order on January 31 that stayed the execution of the convicts –  Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Kumar Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar (31) – until further orders. S

Expressing concern over the delay in execution, the victim’s parents urged the court to expeditiously decide the Centre’s plea and were assured by the judge that the order would be passed at the earliest.

Meanwhile, Delhi High Court on Wednesday maintained that all the four convicts will be hanged together. The high court also gave the convicts a week’s time to avail all legal remedies.

On January 7, warrants for the execution of all the four convicts in Tihar jail at 7 AM on January 22 were issued. However, the convicts could not be hanged because of pendency of mercy petition by one of them. Later, the trial court fixed February 1, 6 AM as the hanging date and time. That, too, got delayed in the wake of the legal remedies being exercised by the remaining Nirbhaya convicts.