Nirbhaya Case: Death Row Convict Pawan Kumar Gupta Files 2nd Curative Petition Before Supreme Court, Claims He Was Minor at Time of Crime
Days before execution, one of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case, Pawan Kumar Gupta, on Tuesday filed another curative petition before the Supreme Court. In the petition, Gupta claimed that at the time of committing the offence, he was a minor and thereby, his death sentence should be commuted to life imprisonment.
New Delhi, March 17: Days before execution, one of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case, Pawan Kumar Gupta, on Tuesday filed another curative petition before the Supreme Court. In the petition, Gupta claimed that at the time of committing the offence, he was a minor and thereby, his death sentence should be commuted to life imprisonment. Earlier in January also, he filed a petition before the top court claiming that he was a juvenile when the offence took place. The Supreme Court had dismissed the petition then.
On March 16, Gupta along with two other convicts Akshay Kumar and Vinay Kumar moved the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against their death warrants. Mukesh Singh is the fourth convict in the case. All the convicts are scheduled to be hanged on March 20 at 5:30 am at Tihar Jail. On January 7, the Patiala House Court issued a death warrant against four convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape case. The hanging of all the four convicts had been postponed thrice as the legal remedies of the convicts were pending. Initially, they were to be hanged on January 22.
On March 5, a trial court here issued fresh warrants for March 20. Meanwhile, three days before the execution of the four death row convicts, the hangman arrived at the New Delhi’s Tihar jail. Pawan Jallad will carry out the execution. He lives near Meerut. Nirbhaya Case: Tihar Jail Challenges Stay on Execution of Four Convicts in Delhi High Court.
The case is related to the gangrape and murder of a 23-year-old paramedical student on December 16, 2012. Six people were arrested in connection with the case and charged with sexual assault and murder. One of the accused was a minor and appeared before a juvenile justice court, while another accused Ram Singh committed suicide in Tihar Jail.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 17, 2020 10:36 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).