President Ram Nath Kovind on Saturday rejected the mercy plea of Vinay Kumar, one of the four convicts in the 2012 Delhi gang-rape and murder case, the home ministry officials said.
The rejection of mercy plea comes a day after a Delhi Court postponed their execution indefinitely giving the condemned prisoners a reprieve for the second time in two weeks.
Sharma had filed the mercy petition before the president on Wednesday, his lawyer had said.
Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana while passing the order on Friday on the plea by the convicts seeking adjournment of the executions "sine die" (with no appointed date for resumption), however, took note of their "dilatory tactics" but did not comment on them.
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Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Kumar Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar (31), who are lodged in Tihar jail, were ordered to be hanged on February 1 at 6 am.
With Advocate A P Singh, the counsel for Pawan, Vinay and Akshay contending that their legal remedies were yet to be exhausted, the hanging date remains uncertain.
As of now, only Mukesh has exhausted all his legal remedies including the clemency plea which was dismissed by President Ram Nath Kovind on January 17 and the appeal against the rejection was thrown out by the Supreme Court on January 29.
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Reacting in anguish to the delay in the hanging, Nirbhaya's mother Asha Devi said she will continue her fight till the convicts are hanged.
Devi told reporters her "hopes are dashed" but she will continue her fight till the convicts are hanged.
"These convicts have no right to live. We keep getting disappointed by the system. I will continue my fight till the convicts are hanged," she said.
(With inputs from PTI)
