No Option Left: SC Tells Nirbhaya Rape Convicts

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed as withdrawn a petition filed by Mukesh Singh, one of the four death-row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case, seeking action against his former lawyer Vrinda Grover.

A bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra dismissed the petition saying that Mukesh Singh has availed of all remedies and that the petition is not maintainable.

“Your curative petition has been dismissed. How can we pass an order against our own orders?… You have availed all the legal remedies. You have availed the mercy plea. Thereafter warrants have issued. What is your option now? Only curative can be filed,” Justice Mishra observed.

Advocate Manohar Lal Sharma, appearing for Mukesh, said that the court proceeding was based on fraud and added that the former lawyer should have waited for three years to file a curative petition.

Sharma told the apex court that it can’t compel him to file the curative petition and he needs to wait for three years to file it.

“Filing of the review petition is your choice, not remedy,” Justice Mishra responded.

On Friday, Mukesh Singh’s current lawyer had filed a petition in the Supreme Court against his former lawyer Vrinda Grower, alleging that Grover hatched a criminal conspiracy against Mukesh with the Delhi Police.

The petition said that according to law, the former lawyer could have waited to file a curative petition for three years but deliberately filed the curative petition early, to ensure that this petition gets dismissed and Mukesh is hanged.

This comes after a Delhi court on Thursday issued a fresh death warrant for the four convicts — Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Singh Thakur, and Mukesh Singh — for their execution at 5:30 am on March 20.

The case pertains to the gang-rape and brutalising of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, by six people including a juvenile in Delhi. The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later.

(ANI)