New Delhi: The Supreme Court, on Monday junked the curative petition of Pawan Gupta, one of the four convicts in the Nirbhaya rape and murder case. This move of the Apex Court comes a day before their scheduled date of hanging.
A 23-year-old paramedical student was raped and murdered in a moving bus, in Delhi, on Dec 16, 2012. She died on December 29 at a hospital in Singapore.
Pawan Gupta, 25, was the only convict in the case who had not exhausted his legal options of a curative petition. However, in a plea filed last week, he urged the court to change his death sentence into a life sentence and a five-judge bench headed by Justice NV Ramana said that no case is made out for re-examining the conviction and the punishment of the convict.
He can now file a mercy plea before President Ram Nath Kovind, but it may be recalled that the mercy petitions of the other three convicts – Mukesh Kumar Singh, Vinay Kumar Sharma and Akshay Kumar have already been dismissed by the President.
One of the attackers, just short of 18 when the crime was committed, was released after spending three years at a reform home. The main accused, Ram Singh, was found hanging in jail even as the trial was on.
