Nirbhaya case: SC rejects curative plea of convict Pawan Gupta; convicts to be hanged tomorrow

The Supreme Court of India has rejected the curative petition filed by one of the Nirbhaya rape convicts Pawan Kumar Gupta on Monday.

The curative plea of Pawan Kumar was heard by the five-judge bench of justices N V Ramana, Arun Mishra, R F Nariman, R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan in the chamber of Justice Ramana.

The death warrant has been issued against four convicts involved in the 2012 gang rape case. The execution of the convicts will be held on March 3.

Pawan Kumar Gupta (25) claimed juvenility to seek commutation of sentence to life imprisonment. He filed the curative plea through lawyer A P Singh seeking an oral hearing in the open court.

Out of the four convicts, Pawan was the last death row convict in the case to move the SC with his curative petition, the final legal remedy available to a person.

Although, the apex court has already rejected the curative petitions of the remaining three convicts.

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

However, the information given by the convict was suppressed by the State throughout the proceedings, Pawan has claimed.

The curative petition of Pawan was come days ahead of execution of death warrants for four convicts.

The trial court on February 17 issued a fresh date for the execution of convicts—Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan Kumar Gupta, Akshay Singh (31), and Vinay Kumar Sharma (26).

Earlier, President have already been dismissed the mercy petitions of three convicts—Mukesh, Vinay and Akshay.

Also, the apex court had rejected the separate pleas filed by Mukesh and Vinay challenging the rejection of their mercy petitions by the President of India.

Also Read: Nirbhaya Case: Nirbhaya's mother expresses shock at judicial inaction