Earlier the top court had dismissed a separate petition filed by Mukesh and Vinay challenging the rejection of their mercy petitions by the President
New Delhi: Out of the four death convicts, Pawan Kumar Gupta, in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case moved a curative petition in the Supreme Court on Friday seeking commutation of his death penalty to life imprisonment. Gupta has also sought a stay on the execution of the black warrant issued by the trial court for the hanging.
Gupta’s counsel A P Singh said he is against whom the death warrant has been issued for execution along with three other condemned prisoners on March 3, has filed the curative petition saying that the death penalty should not be awarded to him.
Gupta is the lone convict who has not exhausted his legal remedies of registering a curative petition — last legal remedy available to a person — and subsequent mercy petition with the President.
On February 17 the trial court issued fresh date for execution of death sentence for March 3 at 6 am for the four convicts — Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Kumar Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar (31) — in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case.
The mercy petitions of three convicts — Mukesh, Vinay, and Akshay — have already been dismissed by the President.
Earlier the top court had dismissed a separate petition filed by Mukesh and Vinay challenging the rejection of their mercy petitions by the President.
Akshay has not yet challenged the rejection of his mercy petition.
23-year-old physiotherapy intern, on December 16, 2012, who came to be known as ‘Nirbhaya’ (fearless), was gang-raped and savagely assaulted in a moving bus in South Delhi. She died after some weeks.
There were six people, including the four convicts and a juvenile, who were named as accused. Ram Singh, the sixth accused, allegedly committed suicide in Tihar jail days after the trial began in the case.
In 2015 the juvenile was released after spending three years in a correctional home.
As an independent media platform, we do not take advertisements from governments and corporate houses. It is you, our readers, who have supported us on our journey to do honest and unbiased journalism. Please contribute, so that we can continue to do the same in future.
