Nirbhaya case: SC to hear convict Pawan Gupta’s plea claiming he was a minor ar time of offence

Nirbhaya case: SC to hear convict Pawan Gupta’s plea claiming he was a minor ar time of offence

New Delhi : Asix-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India will be hearing the curative petition filed by the 2012 Delhi gang-rape convict Pawan Gupta. Pawan is one of the four convicts on death row for the gang-rape of a 23-year-old medical student on a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012. The victim succumbed to fatal internal injuries on December 29 of the same year.

In his plea, convict Pawan Gupta has claimed that his death sentence is commuted to life imprisonment claiming that he was a minor at the time of the incident. Pawan had first filed a review petition in the Supreme Court in December of 2017 along with co-convict Vinay Sharma. The apex court dismissed the petitions in July of 2018.

Since that time, all four convicts have been taking turns to avail of the legal remedies available to anyone on death row. Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, Akshay Thakur and Vinay Sharma have since filed mercy pleas before the President of India, all of which were promptly rejected. They then filed mercy-review petitions in the Supreme Court which too were dismissed.


In addition, the four convicts have also filed review petitions and curative petitions in the Supreme Court. The last of which is scheduled to be heard on Thursday by a six-judge bench of India's top court. If the apex court dismisses the plea, the four men on death row are likely to hang for their heinous crime at Delhi's Tihar jail on March 20 as per the most recent death 'black' warrant issued in their names by an Additional Sessions court.


Parents of the 2012 Delhi gang-rape victim, who was given the name Nirbhaya (fearless), have time and again accused the legal teams of the four convicts of using loopholes in the law to delay the executions which were initially meted out to them by a fast track court (FCT) in September of 2013. On February 1 of this year, the central government also moved the Delhi High Court against a trial court order which established that none of the four convicts can be executed unless all four are executed at the same time. The HC dismissed the Centre's plea and upheld the previous order.

While one of the accused, Ram Singh, committed suicide in his Tihar Jail cell in 2013, another accused was identified as a juvenile and tried by the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB). After he was found guilty, the boy was sent to a remand home for three years as punishment.

All eyes are now on the Supreme Court as the family of the 23-year-old victim, who have been steadfast in their search for justice, wait for the verdict with bated breath.