Authorities of Tihar Jail on Saturday said in a local court claims by Vinay Sharma, one of the December 16 gang rape case death row convicts, about his injuries are self-inflicted and he is not suffering from any mental health issues.
Vinay Sharma’s counsel, AP Singh, had told the court earlier this week that his client suffers from mental illness, schizophrenia and has failed to recognise his counsel and family.
Additional sessions judge Dharmendra Rana has then sought a status report from the prison authorities and posted the matter for further hearing on February 22. Sharma had sought directions to authorities to provide him high-level medical treatment to him for his injuries.
The plea said that when his counsel found that Sharma had grievous head injury, fracture in his right arm with plaster, and was suffering from insanity, mental illness and schizophrenia.
Public prosecutor Irfan Ahmed, who is representing the jail, said in the court Vinay Sharma’s application is a “bundle of distorted facts”. Ahmed said the death row convict himself struck his head on the wall and that it was a self-inflicted injury, he added.
Ahmed, in his argument, said the closed-circuit television or CCTV footage in the barrack showed the convict had self harmed. Jail authorities have submitted the footage in the court.
On Sharma’s plea seeking treatment at the Institute of Human Behaviour & Allied Sciences (IHBAS), Ahmed said examination by jail doctors and his history reveal that the convict is not suffering from such disease.
“So his examination at any hospital is not required,” Ahmed said.
When the court sought to know whether the death row convict are counselled regularly, Tihar authorities informed that the counsellors present in the jail regularly deal with the prisoners.
On allegations that Sharma could not identify his counsel or his mother during a legal meeting on Wednesday, Ahmed said there have been two calls from the convict from his mother and counsel on February 17.
“So all allegations that he can’t recognise his mother are also false,” he said.
Sharma’s lawyer AP Singh said jail authorities have concealed fact, contending that the court was not informed about Sharma’s injuries.
“When the incident had taken place on February 16, the court was not informed about the incident on February 17,” Singh said as he called for the CCTV footage on the day when he met Sharma on February 18.
Singh started crying while presenting his arguments and was offered a glass of water by the judge. He also said he might leave the case and might not continue in this case.
“This might be my last submission,” he said.
Sharma along with Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta and Akshay Thakur were sentenced to death by a Delhi court in 2013 after they were found guilty of brutally raping and murdering a 23-year-old paramedic student on a moving bus on December 16, 2012.
Their hanging, as ordered by a city court, has been deferred twice.
On February 17, a Delhi court had issued fresh warrants, for the third time, to hang the convicts till death on March 3 at 6am.
