New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Sunday reserved its order on a plea filed by the central government and Tihar Jail authorities challenging the order of Patiala House district court which stayed the execution of the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case. A single-judge bench of Justice Suresh Kumar Kait reserved the order on the matter.

During the hearing, advocate AP Singh, who is appearing for convicts Pawan Gupta, Akshay Thakur and Vinay Sharma, asked: "Why there was a hurry to execute the death sentence in this case only ... Justice hurried is justice buried." "They (convicts) belong to rural areas and Dalit families. They come to Delhi and get implicated. Mukesh and Ram Singh are Dalits. Both are brothers who came from a rural part of Rajasthan. It is not convicts' fault. They cannot be made to bear brunt of ambiguity in the law," Singh told the court.

Senior advocate Rebecca John, appearing on behalf of convict Mukesh, said that the "Centre has sought the setting aside of the order of the Patiala House Court" when "an earlier Delhi High Court order has clearly said that any order of the trial court should be challenged in the Supreme Court only".

Earlier, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing on behalf of the Centre, alleged that the convicts were deliberately delaying the execution, adding that any delay in death sentence will have a dehumanising effect on the convicts.

A Delhi court last week stayed till further orders the execution of the four convicts -- Akshay Thakur, Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, and Vinay Sharma -- which was earlier scheduled to take place on February 1.

The case pertains to the gang-rape and brutal murder 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 adults accused, Ram Singh, had allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail during the trial of the case.