Delhi rape case: Indian president rejects mercy plea of convict Vinay Sharma

Indian President Ram Nath Kovind on Saturday rejected the mercy petition of Vinay Sharma, one of the four death row convicts in 2012 gang-rape and murder case.

Earlier, convict Vinay Sharma filed his mercy petition before President urging him to listen to his side of the story, his Lawyer, AP Singh said.

The death row convict said that he feels that he has "died several times already" in prison during the pendency of judicial proceedings, reports NDTV.

A Delhi court had deferred the hanging of the four convicts on Saturday until further orders.

The Supreme Court has already rejected the curative petition of Vinay. A Delhi court noted that the decision had not yet been taken on convict Vinay Sharma's mercy plea and handed them a last-minute reprieve, yet again.

The court was hearing a plea filed by Vinay Sharma, who had sought that the death warrant issued by the court on January 17, for the second time, be stayed in the wake of the mercy petition pending before the President.

The trial court had issued black warrants for all the four convicts on January 17 and decreed that they were to be hanged at Tihar jail at 6am on February 1.

They were convicted of raping the 23-year-old woman on the night of December 16, 2012, in a moving bus in south Delhi. She died of injuries a fortnight later at a Singapore hospital.

The convict, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh Singh were sentenced to death by a fast-track court within a year of the brutal crime that had brought thousands of people to the streets in demand of better safety for women and stricter laws.

The protests eventually led to a major overhaul of all laws surrounding sexual assault.