Tihar Jail gives 7 days time to Nirbhaya case convicts to file mercy petition

New Delhi, Dec 18: Tihar Jail administration on Wednesday issued a notice to the convicts of the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case to file mercy petition within seven days, Director General (Prison) Sandeep Goel said.

Goel told PTI that the administration has informed the four convicts that they have seven days to file mercy petition. If they do not file the petition in the given time, the jail administration will approach the court concerned for further proceedings, a senior officer said.

Earlier in the day, the Patiala House court adjourned for January 7 the hearing on the issuance of death warrants against the convicts in the December 16, 2012 case.

The city court gave a week's time to know whether the four convicts are filing mercy petitions, hours after the Supreme Court dismissed the last review plea against the capital punishment. Nirbhaya's parents watched the proceedings in the case both at the Supreme Court and the Patiala House complex.

A 23-year-old paramedic student, who came to be known as Nirbhaya, was gangraped on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012, inside a moving bus in south Delhi by six people and severely assaulted before being thrown out on the road.

She succumbed to injuries on December 29 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.

The four convicts in the case have been sentenced to death. Ram Singh, one of the convicts, had allegedly killed himself in 2013 while a juvenile, who was among the six accused, was convicted by a juvenile justice board. He was released from a reformation home after serving a three-year term.