Nirbhaya rape case: Plea for swift execution junked

With just three days to go before the sixth anniversary of the gruesome Nirbhaya rape case, which shook the nation and led to significant legal reforms on rape laws, the Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a petition demanding the immediate execution of the four convicted accused in the 2012 rape and murder of the 23-year-old paramedic.

The petition filed by advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava sought the court's direction to immediately hang the four culprits who have exhausted all their legal remedies and are awaiting their death sentence to be carried out. However, not impressed by the prayer, the bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta said, "What kind of a petition is this? You are making a joke of this court. Are we to go around Delhi and execute these people?"

It was the Supreme Court which had sent the four culprits — Mukesh (31), Pawan Gupta (24), Akshay (33) and Vinay Sharma (25) to the gallows on May 5, 2017, upholding the verdict pronounced against them by the Delhi High Court and trial court as well.

One of the other accused was a juvenile, who was sentenced to three years stay at the observation home, while the sixth accused Ram Singh, hanged himself inside the high-security Tihar Prison.