Mukesh Singh, one of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case, on Wednesday moved the Delhi High Court challenging a trial court order dismissing his plea that he was not in the national capital when the crime took place on December 16, 2012.
The high court will hear the plea later today.
The trial court had dismissed Mukesh's plea and had asked the Bar Council of India to give appropriate sensitisation exercise to his counsel.
The prosecution, during the hearing, had accused the defence of making a "mischievous attempt" to stall the death sentence scheduled on March 20.
The court observed that some mischievous brains have been projecting and consciously nurturing a misplaced notion that there is a premium over dishonesty in this country.
It said that the court is of the considered opinion that the authorities involved in the dispensation of justice are duty-bound to dispel such ill-founded notion.
"The learned members of the Bar appearing before the court are duty-bound to render full cooperation and assistance to the court to ensure that justice is delivered expeditiously to the litigants without any unnecessary delay," the court said.
"In these circumstances, I deem it appropriate that the conduct of the counsel for the convict needs to be brought to the notice of the Bar Council of India for appropriate sensitization," the court observed.
The court said that the duty cannot be extended to the extent of procuring relief to the client by resorting to all kinds of schemes and stratagems.
Advocate ML Sharma, appearing for Mukesh Singh, had claimed that the convict was arrested from Karoli in Rajasthan on December 17, 2012, and that the prosecution has fraudulently withheld the documentation carried out by Delhi and Rajasthan police.
On March 5, a trial court issued fresh warrants for hanging on March 20 at 5.30 am of all convicts in the case -- Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31).
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 the national capital. The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later.
(With inputs from agencies)
