The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a curative petition filed by Pawan Gupta, one of the four death row convicts in 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case–a day before the scheduled date of hearing.
The five-judge bench headed by Justice Ramana in an in-chamber hearing said no case is made ours for re-examining the conviction and punishment of the convict. Gupta had filed the plea last Friday, seeking the court to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment.
After the rejection of the curative petition, Gupta can now approach President Ram Nath Kovind with a mercy plea. The other three convicts have exhausted all their legal remedies– as their mercy pleas have already been rejected by the President.
Pawan had earlier approached the court with a claim of juvenility to seek commutation of the death sentence. In his curative plea before the apex court, he pleaded that he was 16 years and two months old on the day of the offence as per his school certificates. He further submitted that the State had conveniently suppressed this crucial information throughout the trial.
A 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who came to be known as ”Nirbhaya”, was gang-raped and savagely assaulted on the night of December 16, 2012, in a moving bus in South Delhi. She died of her injuries a fortnight later in a Singapore hospital.
Six people, including the four convicts, Ram Singh and a juvenile — were named as accused.
The trial of the five adult men began in a special fast-track court in March 2013.
Ram Singh, the prime accused, allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself in Tihar jail days after the trial began. The juvenile, who was said to be the most brutal of the attackers, was put in a correctional home for three years.
The juvenile was released in 2015 and sent to an undisclosed location amid concerns over a threat to his life. He, when released, was 20 years old.
The trial of the four adults began in a special fast-track court in March 2013 and they were sentenced to death in September 2013 by the trial court.