NEW DELHI: Mukesh Singh, one of the four convicts in the 2012 Delhi gangrape and murder case, on Tuesday moved a court here to seek quashing of his death sentence on the pretext that he was not present in Delhi when the crime occurred on December 16 that year.
The Delhi court however, has reserved its order.
Additional Sessions Judge Dharmendra Rana will pronounce the order shortly.
In support of his contention, Mukesh claimed that he was arrested from Rajasthan and brought to Delhi on December 17, 2012, a day after the incident.
He also claimed torture in the Tihar Central Jail, where he is currently lodged. The application on his behalf was moved by advocate M.L. Sharma.
The plea claimed that Mukesh Singh was arrested from Rajasthan and brought to Delhi on December 17, 2012, and he was not present in the city on December 16, when the crime took place.
The public prosecutor told the court that Mukesh Singh's plea is frivolous and a tactic to delay the scheduled hanging.
Meanwhile, the other three death row convicts in the case, namely, Akshay Singh, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma, approached the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on March 16, seeking a stay on the execution of their death sentence.
The International Court of Justice, sometimes called the World Court, is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations.
This comes as the four convicts -- Vinay, Akshay, Mukesh, and Pawan -- are scheduled to be executed at 5.30 am on March 20.
The case pertains to the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old paramedic student referred to as Nirbhaya, who was assaulted by six men in a moving bus in Delhi in December 2012 and was thrown out on the road. She succumbed to her injuries at a Singapore hospital on December 29, 2012.
Ram Singh, one of the six accused in the case, allegedly committed suicide in Delhi's Tihar Jail. A juvenile convict was released from a reformation home after serving a three-year term.
So far, President Ram Nath Kovind has rejected the mercy petitions of all the convicts in the matter.
However, a "complete" mercy petition of convict Akshay Singh Thakur has also been filed claiming that the previous one, which was rejected by the President, did not have "complete facts".