NEW DELHI: A three-judge bench of Supreme Court will hear the plea of death row convict in the 2012 Nirbhaya murder and gang-rape case Mukesh Kumar Singh on Tuesday in which he has challenged the dismissal of his mercy petition by the President. President Ram Nath Kovind had dismissed his mercy plea on January 17.
During the urgent mentioning on Monday, a bench headed by Chief Justice of India S A Bobde said, “If somebody is going to be hanged then nothing can be more urgent than this and asked Singh’s counsel to approach the mentioning officer as the hanging is scheduled on February 1.”Singh had moved the mercy petition after the Supreme Court had dismissed his curative petition against his conviction and death sentence.
The three-judge bench will be comprised of Justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bhushan and A S Bopanna.
The warrant for the execution of death sentence for the convicts in the case has been fixed on February 1 at 6 am.A dummy execution was performed as well at Tihar Jail on Monday, prison officials said. This was the third instance of the jail authorities performing the dummy execution in order to test the equipment which will be used to hang the convicts, they said.