Nirbhaya case: Day before scheduled hanging, SC rejects curative plea of convict Pawan Gupta

New Delhi, March 2: A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court has rejected the curative petition filed by Delhi gang rape convict Pawan Kumar Gupta.

The Supreme Court was on Monday hearing ‘in chamber’ the curative plea of Pawan Kumar Gupta, one of the four death row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case – a day before scheduled hanging.

A five-judge bench headed by Justice N V Ramana said no case is made out for re-examining the conviction and the punishment of the convict.

Pawan, 25, was the last death row convict in the case to have moved the SC with his curative plea, the final legal remedy available to a person. With his curative petition dismissed, Pawan can now file a mercy plea before President Ram Nath Kovind. The mercy petitions of the three other convicts have already been dismissed.

Pawan against whom the death warrant was issued for execution on March 3 along with the three others, had claimed juvenility to seek commutation of sentence to life imprisonment. 

Advocate A P Singh filed an application in the SC registry on Sunday seeking an oral hearing on Pawan’s curative plea in the open court.

In the curative plea before the SC, Pawan pleaded that his age on the day of the offence was 16 years and two months as per records of the school last attended by him and “the age has not been determined in accordance with the procedures laid down under the Juvenile Justice Act”.

This information was suppressed by the State throughout the proceedings, Pawan had claimed. He was the lone convict who had not exhausted his legal remedies of filing a curative petition and subsequent mercy plea with the President.

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https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/nirbhaya-case-hanging-supreme-court-reject-curative-plea-convict-pawan-gupta-1651507-2020-03-02