Nirbhaya Case : Court Seeks Tihar Jail's Response On Vinay Sharma's Plea For Mental Illness Treatment

The Patiala House court, Delhi on Thursday sought a report from the Tihar Jail Superintendent after an application was moved on behalf of 2012 Delhi gangrape and murder convict Vinay Sharma, seeking "high level treatment".

Vinay's advocate, AP Singh, moved an application earlier in the day requesting the court to permit the death row convict access to better medical attention since he is suffering from mental illness, insanity and schizophrenia.

Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana took up this matter for hearing and was informed that Vinay had banged his head against a wall and suffered a head injury along with a fracture in his right arm. Singh said that this was due to his mental illness and further appraised the court that he was unable to recognise his mother or his counsel during the last jail visit.

Opposing this application, the Prosecutor submitted that the plea was not maintainable since the Jail Rules already provide for medical assistance to be given to convicts.

The matter will now come up for hearing at 12 pm on February 22.

Vinay, along with the other 3 death row convicts are scheduled to be executed on March 3 at 6am after ASJ Rana issued a death warrant to that effect on February 17. This was the third occasion on which a death warrant was issued in this case, as no legal proceedings were pending before any court, subsequent to Vinay's appeal against his mercy petition rejection being dismissed on February 14 by the Apex court.

Previously, death warrants had been issued for their execution to be carried out on January 22 and February 1 respectively. Neither could be carried out in wake of different pleas pending before the courts. As of today, no court is seized of any other matter in this regard.