NEW DELHI: The scheduled hanging of the four Nirbhaya convicts on January 22 is set to be postponed, with the AAP government on Wednesday informing the high court that state’s jail rules make it mandatory they await outcome of a mercy plea filed by a death row convict.The government told a bench of Justices Manmohan and Sangita Dhingra Sehgal that the date fixed by the trial court for executing the convicts is now only “academic” as the rules further specify that 14 days’ time must be given to the condemned man to “make peace with God” once the President rejects mercy petition and all remedies under law are exhausted.All four convicts — Mukesh, Vinay, Akshay and Pawan — are currently on death row after a trial court issued the black warrant on January 7, fixing 7 am of January 22 to execute them.Opposing Mukesh’s plea that HC stay his impending execution, the prison authorities submitted the petition is “premature” since the jail manual prohibits carrying out capital punishment awarded to more than one person in a case, even if only one of them moves a mercy plea. Hanging can be done only once the mercy plea of all convicts in the case is decided, standing counsel Rahul Mehra told the bench.“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). Every mercy plea is on different grounds, you can’t allow them to frustrate the judicial finding which has attained finality,” an irked bench responded. Only Mukesh has moved a plea seeking mercy before the President. It, however, refused to tinker with the January 7 order and said it was without any error, declining the prayer of Mukesh that the death warrant should be set aside as being un-executable as he has moved a mercy plea before the President.The HC pointed out that there is no error in the trial court’s decision as on that date, none of the convicts had moved a curative petition or a mercy plea. It left it to Mukesh’s counsel, senior advocate Rebecca John and advocate Vrinda Grover , to approach the trial court if he wants the date of execution to be set aside based on a subsequent event — moving of the mercy plea. The HC took a dim view that despite the Supreme Court dismissing Mukesh’s appeal, review and curative petition and confirming death sentence, his lawyers moved the high court against a death warrant that is only taking the SC’s ruling to a logical end.Taking a cue from HC’s observations, the lawyers didn’t press the plea and instead approached the trial court on Wednesday evening. The hearing also saw the HC tick off the jail administration and the Delhi government for delay on their part. The bench highlighted that even though the SC’s final verdict came on May 5, 2017, the jail authorities acted a year later in October, when they informed Mukesh he has seven days time to file a mercy plea.“Put your house in order. It is in disarray. The problem is people will lose confidence in the system. Things are not moving in the right direction. The system is capable of being exploited and we see a stratagem to exploit the system, which is oblivious about it,” the court observed.Mehra agreed that the system was being exploited by the convicts to “frustrate” and “defeat” the process of law but hinted that delay happened at the end of the court too when it came to issuing the death warrant. He said the rules say if by noon of January 21, no decision is taken on the mercy plea, the prison administration will have to move the sessions court for a fresh death warrant.