Nirbhaya’s mother on Wednesday welcomed the verdict of the Delhi High Court which gave the rapists a week’s time to exercise their legal remedies and hoped that a final death warrant is issued against them soon.
“I am satisfied with today’s order but I will be happy only when they are hanged,” Asha Devi told IANS.
The counsel, appearing for Devi, said that the court has “imposed a ban on the delay tactics adopted by the convicts”.
“They have seven days to avail of the legal remedies. If they don’t, a death warrant will be issued against them,” Advocate Seema Kushwaha said.
Earlier on Wednesday, Justice Suresh Kumar Kait dismissed the Central government’s petition challenging the trial court order which had stayed the death warrants in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case, observing that “the convicts have frustrated the process of law”.
“I direct the convicts to file any application regarding their remedies within one week from today (Wednesday) after which the court expects the authorities to act,” the court directed.
The hanging of Vinay, Pawan, Akshay and Mukesh, originally scheduled for 7 a.m. January 22, was postponed to February 1 at 6 a.m. but was deferred again on January 31 after Mukesh filed an application before a Delhi court contending that other convicts are yet to avail of the legal remedies and cannot be hanged separately.
The stay imposed by the trial court was challenged by the Centre the next day.
Mukesh and Vinay have exhausted their legal remedies. However, a decision on Akshay’s mercy plea is pending before the President. Pawan has yet not availed of of the remedy of curative and mercy petition, which will be last judicial and constitutional resort for him.
The 23-year-old victim, later named Nirbhaya, was brutally gang-raped and tortured and succumbed to her injuries a few days later in 2013.