New Delhi, March 19: Hours before execution, three of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case moved Delhi High Court against the death sentence on Thursday evening. In the plea, they challenged the trial court order declining to stay their execution scheduled for March 20. According to reports, a bench headed by Justice Manmohan is likely to hear the matter during the late night hearing. Delhi Gangrape-Murder Case: Supreme Court Dismisses Convict's Curative Petition; Nirbhaya Will Get Justice Tomorrow, Says Victim's Mother Asha Devi.

The plea was mentioned before the registry officials who put it up before the Chief Justice of the High Court, who marked it to the bench headed by Justice Manmohan. Earlier in the day, Delhi's Patiala House court dismissed the plea of -- Akshay Kumar Singh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma -- seeking to stay the death warrants. The death warrants were issued for the first time on January 7 and have been deferred four times earlier on the ground that the convicts were yet to exhaust all their legal remedies. Nirbhaya Rape and Murder Case: Vinay Sharma, One of the Convicts, Hurts Himself by Banging His Head Against Wall in Tihar Jail Cell.

On Wednesday, the Delhi High Court had on Wednesday dismissed an application filed by the fourth convict in the case, Mukesh Singh, challenging a trial court order rejecting his plea for stay on his execution on the ground that he was not present in Delhi on December 16, 2012, the night of the crime. Justice Brijesh Sethi had observed that "there are no grounds to interfere in the detailed and reasoned order dated March 17, 2020, passed by the trial court." The convicts are scheduled to be hanged on Friday morning at 5.30 am at Delhi’s Tihar jail.

The case is related to the gangrape and murder of a 23-year-old girl, later dubbed "Nirbhaya", in the national capital on 16, December 2012. Six people were arrested in the case. One of the accused Ram Singh, committed suicide in Tihar jail days after the trial began in the case, while another accused was a juvenile. He was released in 2015 after spending three years in a correctional home.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 19, 2020 10:02 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).