Indian Supreme Court stays execution of two death row convicts

India's Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed for the time being the execution of two death row convicts, who were to hang Thursday, after President Pranab Mukherjee rejected their clemency pleas last week.

Sources said that the apex court stayed the execution of Shivu and Jadeswamy, who were sentenced to death in 2005 for the rape and murder of a 18-year-old woman in the southern state of Karnataka, in the wake of their pleas, in which they cited a six- year-delay in the rejection of their mercy petition by the Indian President.

Their death sentence in 2005 by a lower court was subsequently upheld by the Karnataka High Court and by the Supreme Court in 2007, following which they had filed mercy petition before the President.

There is reportedly no more mercy petition pending before the current Indian President Pranab Mukherjee, who was sworn into office last year.