President Ram Nath Kovind on Friday rejected a mercy plea of one of the convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya case, hours after it was forwarded to him by the Union Home Ministry.
Mukesh Singh, one of the four death row convicts had filed the mercy plea after the Top Court on Tuesday dismissed curative petitions filed by him and another convict Vinay Sharma.
The four convicts — Vinay Sharma, Mukesh Kumar, Akshay Kumar Singh and Pawan Gupta were to be hanged on January 22 at 7 am in Tihar jail, a Delhi court had issued their death warrants last week.
However, the Delhi government had informed the high court during a hearing that none of the convict can be executed on January 22 as a mercy plea has been filed by Mukesh.
The 23-year-old paramedic student was gang-raped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 in a moving bus in the national capital.
She passed away at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore while undergoing the treatment.
