SC further extends deadline for Nirbhaya convicts to file response

File image: Nirbhaya's mother Asha Devi

The Supreme Court has extended the deadline given to the four convicts of the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case to file their replies by a day.

The next SC hearing on the case has been scheduled at 2 pm on Feb 14 after the replies from the death row convicts are in.

The convicts are expected to reply to the Centre’s appeal challenging the Delhi High Court verdict, where a plea against staying their execution was dismissed earlier.

The execution of Pawan Gupta, Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, and Akshay Singh was initially supposed to take place on January 22, which was postponed to February 1. However, it got delayed again as the convicts kept filing various petitions to stay or delay their execution.

All the convicts are lodged in Tihar Jail at present. Three of them have exhausted all their legal remedies; only Pawan Gupta has not filed for curative or mercy plea yet.

The four were awarded a death sentence for raping and brutalising a 23-year-old paramedic student, on December 16, 2012, inside a moving bus in South Delhi. She succumbed to her injuries later at a Singapore hospital.