Nirbhaya gangrape convict Pawan Gupta's mercy plea rejected by President

New Delhi: President Ram Nath Kovind has rejected the mercy petition of Pawan Gupta, one of the four convicts in the Delhi gangrape case. The Delhi government had earlier recommended rejecting Gupta’s mercy petition.

He was the only one out of the four convicts to not have exhausted all the legal remedies.

On Monday, a court in Delhi again deferred the execution of the four convicts in the case, which was slated for Tuesday, till further orders, after their lawyer AP Singh pointed out that Gupta has filed a mercy petition with the President.

The four convicts - Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Kumar Sharma and Akshay Kumar - were scheduled to be hanged at 6 am on March 3.

Pawan Gupta had moved a fresh application before the Delhi court seeking a stay on the hanging, as his mercy plea is pending before the President after the court dismissed their application seeking stay on hanging earlier on Monday.

He filed the mercy petition after his curative petition was rejected by Supreme Court on Monday morning.

The case pertains to the gangrape and murder of a 23-year-old girl, christened Nirbhaya bythe media, in the Capital in December 2012. Six people, including the four convicts and a juvenile, were named as accused.

Ram Singh, the sixth accused, allegedly committed suicide in Tihar jail days after the trial began in the case. The juvenile was released in 2015 after spending three years in a correctional home.