Nirbhaya convict has no mental insanity past: Tihar Jail tells court

Vinay Sharma

New Delhi: Tihar Jail authorities have filed their response in a Delhi court on the application filed by one of the death row convicts in the Nirbhaya case -- Vinay Sharma -- claiming insanity and informed that there is no medical history of mental instability.

Public prosecutor Irfan Ahmad, appearing for Tihar Jail on Saturday, appraised the court of additional sessions judge Dharmender Rana that convict Vinay injured himself and that the prison has CCTV footage of the incident.

"He was attended by the doctors immediately," Ahmad said.

"All the convicts are regularly examined by the jail doctors. We have all the medical history of the convicts. There is no medical history of mental instability of convict Vinay as claimed by his counsel AP Singh," he told the court.

Advocate Singh, representing the convict, alleged that there have been concealment of facts by the authorities and said that only the facts which suited their (Tihar's) case are been provided while the rest of the facts are not.

The court had, on Thursday, issued a notice to Tihar Jail seeking a report from it on the application which sought high-level medical treatment for Vinay, who according to the application, sustained a "grievous head injury, fracture in his right arm, insanity, mental illness, and Schizophrenia".

"At the time of a legal meeting with counsel and convict, and family meeting with the convict, it was a very serious matter that the convict -- Vinay Sharma -- could not identify his counsel and mother in jail," the application said.

Meanwhile, a fresh death warrant has been issued for the four death row convicts -- Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta, and Mukesh Singh -- in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case for their hanging at 6 am on March 3.

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 Delhi. The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later.

One of the five adult accused, Ram Singh, allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail during the trial of the case.

Catch up on all the latest Crime, National, International and Hatke news here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates