‘Torture’ in Jail Cannot be Ground to Review Prez Order, Says SC as it Rejects Nirbhaya Convict’s Mercy Petition

Correspondent

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday trashed the mercy plea of Nirbhaya case convict Mukesh Singh, stating that torture in prison cannot be a ground to review President’s order. On Tuesday, Singh’s lawyer Anjana Prakash told the apex court that the convict was sexually abused in Tihar Jail. “Courts only sentenced me to death. Was I sentenced to be raped?” the senior lawyer asked the court on his behalf and claimed that several supervening circumstances, including his illegal solitary confinement, were ignored when the mercy petition was rejected.

The lawyer also claimed that Mukesh Singh’s co-convict in the 2012 gang-rape and murder case, Ram Singh, was murdered in jail but the case was closed as suicide. Ram Singh had been found hanging in his cell in March 2013. The trial court had issued black warrants for the execution of all the four convicts — Mukesh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Kumar Sharma and Akshay Kumar — at 6 am on February 1.The 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who came to be known as “Nirbhaya” (the fearless), was gang-raped and savagely assaulted on the night of December 16, 2012, in a moving bus in South Delhi. She died of her injuries a fortnight later in a Singapore hospital.