The curative petition submitted by Pawan Gupta, one of the convict in the Nirbhaya Gang Rape Case convict, has been rejected by a five judge bench of the Supreme Court.
On Monday, the Supreme Court held the hearing of the petition in a “chamber” that was filed by Pawan Kumar Gupta one day before the date of his hanging along with 3 other –Vinay, Mukesh, and Akshay.
The five judges’ bench was headed by Justice N V Ramana who said that there is no case to re-examine the conviction and punishment of the convict.
Pawan who is 25 years old now was the last one who had knocked on the door of the apex court amongst the convicts of the Delhi gang rape case. The curative petition is the last legal course that is available to a convict. However, Pawan can still file a mercy plea before the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind. Mercy petitions of the other 3 convicts have already been declined.
Pawan claimed that at the time of the crime, he was a juvenile and sought his execution punishment to be changed to life imprisonment. Advocate A P Singh, on Sunday, filed the application in Supreme Court registry requesting verbal hearing on Pawan’s petition in court.
According to the curative petition that was filed before the top court, Pawan claimed that at the time of the offence, he was 16 years and 2 months old as per his school records and “the age has not been determined in accordance with the procedures laid down under the Juvenile Justice Act”.
He also claimed that through the entirety of the case and trails, the State suppressed this information. He was the only convict left with the legal remedy of the curative petition and with that being dismissed by the Supreme Court, the last remedy left with him is the mercy plea with the President of India.
On Saturday, both Akshay, and Pawan moved to a trial court seeking a stay on their execution. Akshay claimed that he had filed a fresh mercy petition before the President which is still yet to be answered, Pawan said that he had filed this curative petition before the Supreme Court.
On 17th February 2020, the trial court issued 3rd Death Warrant for the 4 convicts – Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Akshay Singh (31), Vinay Kumar Sharma, (26), and Pawan Kumar Gupta (25) – for the Nirbhaya Gang Rape and Murder Case, and kept their execution date and time as 3rd March 2020 at 6:00 AM.Mercy petition of Mukesh, Akshay, and Vinay had already been rejected by the President, and earlier, the top court dismissed individual pleas that were filed by Vinay and Mukesh that challenged the rejection of their Mercy Plea by the President.
