Advocate AP Singh, lawyer of the convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case, on Thursday said that he has filed a complaint before the Election Commission of India because the mercy petition of Vinay Sharma was forwarded to the President at a time when Model Code of Conduct was in force in Delhi.
"We have filed a petition before the Election Commission of India because the mercy petition of Vinay Sharma, which reached Delhi government on January 30, was forwarded with the signature of the Home Minister of Delhi at a time when Model Code of Conduct was implemented in Delhi," Singh told reporters here.
He said that the Home Minister of Delhi was not in power at the time when the mercy petition and recommendation to reject the petition was forwarded to the President of India.
"The mercy petition was not supposed to be forwarded to the President of India at the time as the elections were scheduled for February 8. Therefore the mercy petition could not have been rejected," Singh added.
President Ram Nath Kovind had on February 1 rejected the mercy petition of convict Vinay Sharma after which the rejection was challenged in the Supreme Court. The top court had said that it did not find any grounds for considering the petition filed by Sharma seeking a review of the rejection of his mercy petition's dismissal.
Sharma had filed a mercy petition on January 29.
Meanwhile, a Delhi court has issued a fresh death warrant for the four death row convicts -- Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh Singh -- in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case for their hanging at 6 am on March 3.
The case pertains to the brutal gang-rape and killing of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012 by six people including a juvenile in Delhi.
The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later. One of the five adults accused, Ram Singh, allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail during the trial of the case.
( With inputs from ANI )