‘Frivolous’: One of the 3 pleas aimed at 4th stay of Delhi rape convicts hanging junked

Mukesh Singh had challenged the lower court’s rejection of his contention that he was not present in the city during the time of the crime and that the police had not shown his actual date of arrest.

Delhi High Court on Wednesday evening dismissed one of the three last minute pleas filed by the Delhi gang rape convicts in different courts hours before their scheduled hanging at 5 am on March 20 and termed the petition frivolous which was only aimed to delay the execution of the sentence imposed upon the petitioner.

December 16 Delhi bus gang rape accused Mukesh Singh’s last minute petition was dismissed by Delhi HC (HT File Photo)

The court rejected all the claims of alleged concealment of material facts by the prosecution regarding arrest of convict Mukesh Singh and his torture in jail and said the petitioner was convicted fairly and was now claiming a botched trial only to delay justice.

“It does not vitiate the trial for the reason that there were number of opportunities available to the petitioner to raise the plea before the trial court where trial was going on or this court where the appeal was filed or even in SLP before the Hon’ble Supreme Court. This frivolous plea has only been taken to delay the execution of the sentence imposed upon the petitioner,” the court order says.

Mukesh Singh had challenged the lower court’s rejection of his contention that he was not present in the city during the time of the crime and that the police had not shown his actual date of arrest. He had also claimed to have been tortured in the jail by authorities, resulting in a coerced confession which cannot be relied upon.

“This Court has further observed that in any event it is settled preposition of law that any irregularity in the arrest has no bearing on the trial,” it said.

Mukesh along with his three co-convicts-- Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma-- were found guilty of brutally gang raping a 23-year-old paramedic student on a moving bus on December 16, 2012, and were sentenced to death by hanging by the trial court, which was confirmed by the high court and the Supreme Court in prolonged trials.

All the four convicts have exhausted all their legal remedies before the courts and the President of India but their counsels have been accused of coming up with several last-minute petitions to thwart their hanging thrice already and this petition was one of the three aimed to procure the fourth stay on their execution.

One of the other two petitions filed in a local Delhi court by Akshay Pawan and Vinay seeks suspension of execution citing revised mercy petitions filed before the President by the first two petitioners as one of the reasons. That case will be heard tomorrow afternoon.

Another convict Pawan Gupta has filed a last-minute curative petition claiming he was a juvenile at the time of the incident.

Akshay, Pawan and Vinay have also approached the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for a stay on the execution of their death sentence.

Apart from the above petitions filed by the convicts themselves, there are two other know related petitions-- one for divorce by Akshay’s wife in a Bihar court and another allegedly in Delhi High Court by Pawan Gupta’s father’s against a key witness in the case.

The delay in hanging has triggered outrage from the victim’s mother and a section of the civil society who have accused the convicts of using loopholes in the law to frustrate justice.

The Delhi High court seemed to agree with the contention.

“In the opinion of this Court, the plea is taken at this stage only to delay the proceedings and therefore, the contention of the petitioner cannot be accepted and the same is rejected,” the court said.