Delhi's Patiala House Court allows transfer of Nirbhaya case to another judge

Delhi's Patiala House Court on Monday (November 25) allowed the plea of Nirbhaya's parents that has sought transfer of the case to another court. The case will now be heard by Additional Sessions Judge Satish Arora on November 28. In December 2018, Nirbhaya's parents had approached the court to fast-track the procedure to hang all four convicts in the case.

Counsel for Nirbhaya's parents, advocate Seema Smriddhi Kushwaha said, “We had approached the court when legal remedies of the convicts got exhausted. We had sought court’s direction to expedite the execution of the rape convicts.”

Nirbhaya, 23, was brutally gangraped on December 16 in 2012, inside a running bus by six people in Delhi. The shocking brutality of the gang-rape left the nation stunned and forced the government to tighten the rape laws.

Out of the six convicts, one committed suicide inside Tihar Jail and another, a juvenile was allowed to walk free after serving a maximum punishment of three years in a reform home.

The four rapists were awarded death sentence by the trial court, which was later upheld by the High court and the Supreme Court.

On October 31, a notice was issued by the Tihar Jail administration to the convicts in Nirbhaya case stating that the capital punishment awarded to them would be executed in seven days if they don''t challenge it through a mercy plea.

It is to be noted that On July 9, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and comprising Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice R. Bhanumathi, upheld the death sentence awarded to four of the accused in May 2017 after three of them, Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, and Pawan Gupta filed a petition in the court to review the judgment.