By Sanjeev Kumar Singh Chauhan

New Delhi, Dec 19 (IANS): The four convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case were on Wednesday night issued a final notice by the Tihar Jail administration, asking them to file a mercy petition, if they wanted, with the President against their death sentence within a week.

Director General, Tihar Jail, Sandeep Goyal told IANS that the notice was issued to convicts Mukesh Singh, Akshay, Pawan Kumar Gupta and Vinay Sharma, all of whom are kept in different jails in the complex.

The move came hours after the prosecution filed an application in a local court seeking issuance of death warrants against the convicts, but Additional Sessions Judge Satish Kumar Arora adjourned the matter for January 7, and directed Tihar Jail authorities to issue a fresh notice to the convicts granting them time to file a mercy plea.

For issuing the notice, the office of the Director General was kept open till quite late in the night, while jailers of the various jails where the convicts were lodged were also held back.

As soon as the notice was prepared, it was given to the jailers concerned to be handed over to the convicts, and this was done at around 9 p.m. Goyal told IANS that according to the court's directions, the four convicts were handed the notice and explained that they could file a mercy petition with the President within a week's time.

The Tihar Jail authorities had served the same notice to the four convicts on October 29. Following this, three of the convicts, save Mukesh Singh, had filed a mercy petition. However, Sharma had subsequently withdrawn his petition.