The Bar Council of Delhi today (January 18, 2020) had issued a show-cause notice to Nirbhaya Case convicts' lawyer AP Singh. The advocate for three out of four convicts has been in dock following an order by the Delhi High Court. AP Singh was indicted for misconduct and employing delaying tactics for postponing the execution date of the convicts in the case.
The four convicts Akshay, Mukesh, Pawan and Vinay had gang-raped and murdered a 23 year old woman in a moving bus in the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi. The paramedic student was raped on the intervening night of December 16, 2012, inside a running bus in south Delhi by six persons and severely assaulted before being thrown out on the road. She died on December 29, 2012, at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore, where she was airlifted from Delhi for treatment.
The first mercy plea in the case has already been rejected by the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind on January 17, 2020. Fate has been sealed for one of the three convicts. Mukesh Singh will be hanged till death. The Patiala house court of Delhi on the same day had issued fresh death warrants for the accused who will now be hanged on February 1 at 6 am in the morning.
A 5-Judge bench of the Supreme Court on January 14, 2020 had dismissed the curative petitions filed by two Nirbhaya gang rape case condemned prisoners - Vinay Kumar and Mukesh - who questioned the death sentence awarded to them.
The bench was unanimous in holding that there was no merit in the curative petitions of Vinay Sharma and Mukesh seeking reconsideration of death sentence awarded to them in the gang rape case. Other convicts in the case, Pawan Gupta (aged 25) and Akshay Kumar Singh (aged 31) hadn’t filed curative petitions.
