Delhi court to hear Tihar authorities' plea on fresh death warrants

(Clockwise from top left) Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh Singh

Delhi's Patiala House Court on Friday will hear a plea of Tihar Jail authorities seeking issuance of fresh death warrants against the convicts of 2012 Delhi gang-rape case.

The court had yesterday directed the convicts to file their response by today on the plea by Tihar Jail authorities.

The prison authorities moved the application under Section 413 and 414 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and sought to fix a new date for the execution.

This came after President Ram Nath Kovind rejected the mercy petition of convict Akshay Thakur. So far, mercy petitions of Vinay Sharma and Mukesh Singh have also been rejected.

Meanwhile, the Central government has approached the Supreme Court against the order of Delhi High Court, which rejected its plea to separately execute the four convicts in the case.

The Delhi High Court had, on Wednesday, granted a week's time to the four death row convicts to avail all legal remedies available to them and said that the convicts cannot be hanged separately since they were convicted for the same crime.

A Delhi court had earlier stayed till further orders the execution of the four convicts -- Akshay Thakur, Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, and Vinay Sharma -- which was earlier scheduled to take place on February 1.

The case pertains to the gang-rape and brutal murder of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, by six people, including a juvenile, in Delhi. The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later.

One of the five adults accused, Ram Singh, had allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail during the trial of the case.

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