“My husband is a convict in the Nirbhaya case but he is innocent…Now, I want to be legally divorced from him before he is hanged as I don’t want to live the life of a widow,” Punita Devi, wife of Akshay Thakur, said in her petition filed at a family court in the local district court of Aurangabad. Son of Saryug Singh and Malti Devi, Akshay Thakur hails from the Lahangkarma village of Bihar’s Aurangabad district. The court has fixed March 19 as the next date of hearing.

My client [Punita Devi] has a right to seek divorce from her husband under section 13(2)(II) of the Hindu Marriage Act, which says a woman can seek divorce from her husband if he has been found guilty of rape, sodomy or bestiality. I have filed her petition in the family court of the district,” Mukesh Kumar Singh, Punita Devi’s lawyer told local journalists in Aurangabad. Ms. Devi also has a son to look after.

All the four convicts of Nirbhaya — Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) are currently lodged in Tihar jail and are set to be hanged on March 20. They have been using tactics to delay the hanging, which has already been postponed twice. They have even approached international court and India’s Human Rights Commission.

However, some legal experts feel that there is no chance of any further delay as all formalities have been completed and the convicts have exhausted all legal remedies.

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A bench comprising Justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bushan and A S Bopanna dismissed the plea of the death row convict, Pawan Kumar Gupta, and upheld the Delhi High Court verdict.

The apex court said there was no ground to interfere with the high court order that rejected Pawan’s plea and his claim was rightly rejected by the trial court as also the high court.

Advocate A P Singh, appearing for Pawan, said that as per his school leaving certificate he was a minor at the time of the offence and none of the courts, including trial court and high court, ever considered his documents.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for Delhi police, said that his claim of juvenility was considered at each and every judicial forum and it will be a travesty of justice if the convict is allowed to raise the clam of juvenility repeatedly and at this point of time.

He said the convict was 19 years old at the time of offence and there is a certified copy of his birth certificate as well as school leaving certificate which was taken on record by each and every judicial forum.

Pawan had moved the apex court on Friday. He has also sought a direction restraining the authorities from executing the death penalty, scheduled for February 1.

A Delhi court on Friday issued fresh death warrants for February 1 against the four convicts — Vinay Sharma (26), Akshay Kumar Singh (31), Mukesh Kumar Singh (32) and Pawan (25) — in the case.

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