Weeks ahead of Execution, Nirbhaya Case Convict Moves SC Seeking Restoration of His Legal Remedies

New Delhi: Mukesh Singh, one of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case, moved a plea in the Supreme Court on Friday seeking restoration of all his legal remedies, alleging that his lawyers had misled him.

The plea, filed through advocate ML Sharma, sought a CBI probe into alleged "criminal conspiracy" and "fraud" hatched by the Centre, Delhi government and Advocate Vrinda Grover, who is the amicus curiae in the case.

A trial court here on Thursday issued fresh warrants with March 20, 5.30 am, as the date for the execution of the convicts — Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31).

"Petitioner (Mukesh) is victim of criminal conspiracy and fraud played and hatched jointly by the R-1 (Ministry of Home Affairs), R-2 (Delhi government) and R-3 (Vrinda Grover) and other advocate who appeared in the session court, high court and the Supreme Court in the petitioner's death warrant case.

"They compelled him to sign various papers under threat of session court order (which was never issued by the session court) stating that court has directed her to secured various signed documents from him to file various petitions, including curative petition, on his behalf in the high court and the Supreme Court in his death sentence case," the plea said.

The petition contended that the respondents "knowingly and deliberately" for vested and political interests hatched a joint criminal conspiracy against Mukesh Singh and visited Tihar Jail and met the petitioner asking him to sign various documents.

The plea said that they asked him to sign 'vakalatnama' stating that the session court has issued an order to get various documents signed by him to file a curative petition for him in all courts.

"Being pressurised/feared due to the so-called session court order, the petitioner signed various sets of vakalatnama for her and signed other papers for her. Recently the petitioner came to know that there was no such session court order," the plea said.

The petition claimed the limitation period to file a curative petition was three years from the date of dismissal of the review plea and sought to "restore" the rights available to him and allow him to file curative and mercy petitions till July 2021.

A 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who came to be known as 'Nirbhaya' (fearless), was gang-raped and savagely assaulted in a moving bus in south Delhi on December 16, 2012. She had died after a fortnight.

Six people, including the four convicts and a juvenile, were named as accused. Ram Singh, the sixth accused, allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail days after the trial began in the case.

The juvenile was released in 2015 after spending three years in a correctional home.