The mother of Delhi gangrape victim welcomed the Supreme Court order dismissing the plea of one of the convicts in the case Mukesh Singh against the rejection of his mercy petition. The three-judge bench said that the President took all relevant records into account before dismissing his mercy plea.
“I welcome the Supreme Court verdict, and want all the convicts should be hanged as soon as possible,” said the 23-year-old woman’s mother Asha Devi.
“I have kept my faith in law for the last seven years, and still do,” she added.
The Supreme Court order came less than 70 hours before the scheduled hanging of the four convicts – Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Thakur. Singh’s unsuccessful attempt to get a presidential pardon had necessitated a fresh death warrant and pushed the execution of the four convicts from January 22 to February 1 at 6 am.
After the rejection of his mercy petition, Singh approached the Supreme Court on Saturday. Singh had relied on the guidelines laid down in the judgment by the top court in 2014 in the Shatrughan Chauhan vs Union of India case and assailed the manner in which the mercy plea was rejected.
The President had rejected his petition on January 17 within a span of just four days – in the fastest decision ever on a such a plea.
Mukesh Singh is one of the five men and one juvenile who had raped and brutally assaulted a 23-year-old woman in a moving bus in Delhi on December 16, 2012, leading to nationwide outrage.
The victim died on December 29 from the injuries in a hospital in Singapore where she was airlifted for treatment.
One of the accused committed suicide in Tihar jail during the trial while the juvenile accused was sent to a reform house and released three years later.
Singh and three others were convicted and sentenced to death by the trial court in 2013. The conviction and sentence were confirmed by the Delhi high court in 2014 and the Supreme Court in May 2017.
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