The hanging of the convicts in 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape case is now delayed because of Delhi government's negligence. AAP is responsible for this delayed justice," said Prakash Javadekar.
Javadekar asked, "Why did the Kejriwal government not give notice to the convicts for filing mercy plea in the last 2.5 years?"
Senior party leader and Union minister Prakash Javadekar told reporters that, if the AAP government had given notices to all convicts within a week of the Supreme Court order, they would have been hanged by now and the nation would have served justice.
The Delhi government and Tihar jail authorities told a bench of Justices Manmohan and Sangita Dhingra Sehgal that under the prison rules if death sentence has been awarded to more than one person in a case and if one of them moves a mercy plea, the execution of the others too has to be postponed till the plea is decided.
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"Then your rule is bad if you cannot take action till all the co-convicts have moved a mercy plea. It seems there has been non-application of mind (while framing the rules). The system is suffering from cancer," the bench told Delhi government standing counsel (criminal) Rahul Mehra in response to his submission.
However, The Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government had rejected the mercy plea of Mukesh, one of the convicts.
The mercy plea was then forwarded to the Lieutenant Governor, who has now sent it to Union Ministry of Home Affairs.
The convicts were sentenced to death for raping a 23-year old woman in a moving bus in the national capital region on the cold night of December 16, 2012.
The victim, who was later given the name Nirbhaya, died in the hospital of Singapore where she had been airlifted for medical treatment.