Manish Sisodia said there will be no delay from our side (File)
The Delhi government has recommended that the mercy plea filed by one of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya case should be rejected, and a communication over its decision has been sent to the Lieutenant Governor at "lightning speed", Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia today said. His remark comes on a day when the High Court refused to entertain the Delhi government's request to set aside the January 22 death warrant of the convicts.
"We learnt that a petition has been filed and we have recommended its rejection and sent it at lightning speed to the LG. There will be no delay from our side, we can assure you that," he was quoted by news agency PTI as saying.
Vinay Sharma, Mukesh Kumar, Akshay Kumar Singh and Pawan Gupta were to be hanged next Wednesday at 7 am in Tihar jail, the trial court judge had declared last week, signing a death warrant seven years after a young medical student was gang-raped on a moving bus, tortured and killed in December 2012.
Mukesh Kumar filed a mercy petition on Tuesday after the Supreme Court dismissed the curative pleas filed by him and Vinay.
The Delhi government today pleaded to the court that their execution "will surely not take place" on January 22 as they can't be hanged until their mercy pleas is pending with the President. But the court didn't find anything wrong with the warrant, and asked them to approach the trial court.
Nirbhaya's mother on Tuesday requested President Ram Nath Kovind to summarily reject the mercy petition of Mukesh Singh. "They will be hanged on the decided date, no matter which court they approach," she told reporters.
The 23-year-old was gang-raped and brutally assaulted in a bus in 2012, and later dumped on the road. She died a few days later. The incident had triggered nationwide protests, prompting the government to make anti-rape laws more stringent.
With inputs from PTI