Nirbhaya case: President rejects Pawan Gupta's mercy petition

President Ram Nath Kovind on Wednesday rejected the request for mercy by Pawan Gupta, one of the four convicts in the gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old medical student in Delhi dubbed "Nirbhaya".

On Monday, a Delhi court had refused to hold, yet again, the execution of the four Nirbhaya case convicts, who were to be hanged at 6 am on Tuesday.

The Patiala House Court dismissed an application to stay the execution of Akshay Thakur, 31, Pawan Gupta, 25, Vinay Sharma, 26, and Mukesh Singh, 32, who have staggered multiple petitions challenging their death sentence. The court, while reserving judgement on Pawan Gupta's fresh petition, tore into the convict's lawyer for filing the petitions at this stage.

The court passed the order on his plea seeking to stay the execution as he filed a mercy petition before the President on Monday.

Earlier on Monday, Pawan's curative petition was rejected by the Supreme Court, which marked the end of all legal options before the convicts. Pawan promptly filed the mercy petition with the President; even though it has been rejected, the law says the convict can be hanged only after 14 days.