The Supreme Court rejected a petition by Mukesh Singh, one of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case, challenging the rejection of his mercy petition by the president. The court claimed there was no merit in his contentions, that alleged torture in prison cannot be a ground for mercy, and that all documents were placed before the president and he had taken them into consideration, reported ANI.
Mukesh filed his mercy petition on January 14. The MHA forwarded it to President Ram Nath Kovind on January 17, and the president rejected the plea in the first half of January 18. Mukesh's advocate Anjana Prakash alleged “non-application of mind” by the president in rejecting the mercy plea. When the court asked her how she had made that allegation, she alleged that the president had not been furnished with all the documents relevant to the case.
Prakash made a shocking accusation in court, saying that Mukesh had been forced into performing sexual acts with co-convict Akshay Thakur in Tihar jail. She also questioned why Mukesh had been put into solitary confinement before the rejection of his mercy plea.
The Centre had sought dismissal of the plea. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told a three-judge bench headed by Justice R. Banumathi that the convict, Mukesh Kumar Singh, was not kept in solitary confinement as alleged and no ground of commutation has been made out. Mehta told the bench, also comprising justices Ashok Bhsuhan and A.S. Bopanna, that the entire material was sent by the Ministry of Home Affairs to President for deciding mercy plea of Singh. He also told the bench that the power of judicial review of the apex court is very limited in such cases and said the delay in deciding his mercy plea would have a dehumanising impact.
The trial court has issued black warrants for the execution of all the four convicts—Mukesh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Kumar Sharma and Akshay Kumar—at 6am on February 1.
The 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who came to be known as "Nirbhaya" (the fearless), was gang-raped and savagely assaulted on the night of December 16, 2012, in a moving bus in South Delhi. She died of her injuries a fortnight later in a Singapore hospital.
-Inputs from PTI
