(Image source from: www.sentinelassam.com)

The plea that has been filed by the death row convicts in the Nirbhaya case has been approved by the Delhi court.

The plea was in order to seek a stay on their execution on 1st of February. The postponement of the execution has been announced and it is said that the execution shall be postponed until further orders .

The verdict has been delivered by Dharmender Rana who is the Additional Sessions Judge at the Patiala court in Delhi.

The convicts Pawan Gupta, Vinay Kumar Sharma and Akshay Kumar have been represented by advocate AP Singh. The advocate has urged the court to adjourn the executions “sine die” as the mercy plea of Vinay Kumar which has been placed before the President is pending.

The authorities of the Tihar jail have challenged the application of the three prisoners in the case seeking a stay on their execution as only the plea of one convict has been pending and therefore the others can be hanged.

This has been opposed by the lawyer of the convict saying that the rules dictate that when there exists pending in the plea of one convicts, the other convicts cannot be hanged.

The fourth person who has been sentenced to death in the Nirbhaya case is Mukesh Kumar whose mercy plea has been dismissed by the President Ram Nath Kovind on 17th of January.

The convicts are provided with an option of moving a mercy petition before the President only after their curative plea has been dismissed by the apex court.

The Nirbhaya case is of a 23- year- old physiotherapy intern who was gang- raped and was assaulted on the night of December 16, 2012 in South Delhi in a moving bus. She has struggled to live but has experienced her last breath a fortnight later in a hospital in Singapore.

-Shrithika Kushangi