Nirbhaya's mother Asha Devi said the delay showed the ineffectiveness of the system.
Asha Devi, mother of the 23-year-old medical student whose fatal gang-rape in 2012 on a bus in Delhi prompted a massive outpouring of public anger and tough new laws against sexual violence, said on Monday that the repeated delay in the execution of the convicts shows the "ineffectiveness" of India's legal system.
"This shows the ineffectiveness of our system. The whole world is watching how justice is being delayed in India. The system is supporting the criminals," she said outside a court in Delhi after the hanging of four men convicted in the case was put off for the third time.
Asha Devi said she "loses hope every day" but the convicts will be hanged no matter what they do.
"I lose hope every day but I stand tall every day. They would have to be hanged. There could not have been a worse case than Nirbhaya but still I am struggling to get justice. Her intestines were ripped out but the courts are sitting and watching a tamasha (drama)," she added.
Her husband Badrinath Singh said, "She is a mother. No one can understand her pain. Not even me. I keep telling her we will get justice but it's difficult to forget the pain a mother feels for her child,"
A Delhi court on Monday deferred till further order the hanging of the four death row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case.
Hanging of the four convicts was scheduled for Tuesday at 6 am.
Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana said the death sentence cannot be executed as the mercy petition of one of the convicts, Pawan Gupta, is pending with President Ram Nath Kovind, so they have not exhausted all their legal options
The court passed the order on Pawan's plea seeking to stay the execution as he has filed a mercy petition before the President on Monday.
The first date of execution, January 22, was postponed to February 1 by a January 17 court order. Then the trial court, on January 31, stayed, "till further orders" the execution of the four convicts as they had not exhausted all their legal remedies.
The court had on February 17 directed that the four men be hanged by neck on March 3 at 6 am until they are dead. This was for the third time that the death warrants were issued by the court against them.
"Now deferring it any further would be sacrilegious to the rights of the victim for expeditious justice," it had said.