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Vinay Sharma, one of the four convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case, on Saturday, 7 December, sought immediate withdrawal of his mercy plea from President Ram Nath Kovind, saying it was sent without his consent.
The convict wrote to the president, alleging his mercy plea, which was forwarded to him from the the Ministry of Home Affairs, had been sent by the Tihar jail authorities with a "malafide intention" and in "criminal conspiracy" with the Delhi government.
Sharma said he was yet to exhaust all legal remedies available to him before filing the mercy plea as he has not filed any curative petition before the Supreme Court.
"Additionally, you are requested in the interim not to take any decision on my mercy petition," Sharma said in the letter, sent through his lawyer A P Singh.
In his letter to President Kovind, Sharma also said his mercy plea was sent "fraudulently", without annexing to it any document detailing the mitigating circumstances of his case and by concealing various important facts so that the same is rejected.
The convict also pleaded that taking any step on his mercy plea would amount to a grave injustice as he was yet to exhaust all his judicial remedies.
The court was hearing a plea by the victim's parents who have sought a direction to the jail authorities to expedite the execution of the convicts.
The victim's parents had approached the court saying the convicts have exhausted all legal remedies.
In December last year, Nirbhaya's parents had approached the court to fast-track the procedure to hang all four convicts in the case.
Nirbhaya is the changed name of the December 2012 gang rape-cum-murder victim, a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who was gang-raped and brutalised in moving bus in South Delhi by six persons, including the bus driver, conductors and helpers.
The woman had boarded the nearly vacant bus in Munirka in South Delhi along with her male friend on her way back home on 16 December that year. After raping and brutalising the woman and beating her friend, the assailants had thrown them out of the bus.
After receiving initial treatment in New Delhi for a few days, she was transferred to the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singaporea, where she succumbed to her injuries on 29 December, 2012.
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