Nirbhaya Rape case: SC rejects curative petition of convict Pawan Gupta
Nirbhaya Rape case: In a major development, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court on Monday rejected the curative petition filed by the Nirbhaya rape convict Pawan Kumar Gupta. The apex court was hearing the curative petition of Pawan 'in-chamber'. Pawan Gupta is one of the four death row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya rape case. The rejection comes a day before the scheduled hanging.
Pawan Gupta, 25, was the last death row convict to have moved to the Supreme Court with his curative petition, the final legal remedy available to a person. Now, Pawan can only file a mercy petition before the President Ram Nath Kovind. Meanwhile, the mercy petitions of the three other convicts have already been dismissed.
Pawan Gupta, against whom the death warrant was issued for hanging on March 3 along with three other accused, had claimed the juvenility seeking commutation of sentence to life imprisonment. Meanwhile, the Advocate AP Singh filed an application in the Supreme Court registry on Sunday seeking an oral hearing on Pawan Gupta curative plea in the open court.
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Pawan in his curative plea pleaded that his age on the day of the offence was 16 years and two months as per the school records last attended by him and also the age was not determined in an accordance with procedures laid down under Juvenile Justice Act".
The trial court on February 17 issued a fresh date of execution of the four convicts – Mukesh Kumar Singh, Pawan Kumar Gupta, Vinay Kumar Sharma, and Akshay Singh – in the Nirbhaya rape case.
-PTC News
