Nirbhaya: SC Dismisses Curative Petition of Pawan Gupta

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a curativepetition of one of the convicts of the 2012 gang rape and murder of a23-year-old medical student in Delhi dubbed as Nirbhaya, Pawan Gupta, a daybefore their scheduled date of hanging on March 3.

Pawan Gupta was the only convict in the case who hadnot exhausted his legal options of a curative petition. In his plea filed lastweek, he had urged the court that his death sentence be changed to lifeimprisonment.

A five-judge bench headed by Justice NV Ramana saidthat no case is made out for re-examining the conviction and the punishment ofthe convict.

The convict can now file a mercy plea before President Ram Nath Kovind. However, the mercy petitions filed by three other convicts- Mukesh Kumar Singh, Vinay Kumar Sharma, and Akshay Kumar have already been dismissed by the President.

The Supreme Court had earlier dismissed the pleasfiled by Mukesh Kumar Singh and Vinay Kumar Sharma that challenged therejection of their mercy petitions. Akshay Kumar has not yet challenged therejection of his mercy petition.

However, a Delhi court has issuedfresh death warrants against the four convicts of the Delhi gang rape andmurder case in 2012 and set a new date for their hanging on March 3 at 6 am.

This is the third time that deathwarrants have been issued after the previous two have stayed which were set onJanuary 22 and February 1. The hangings were stayed because of pending legaloptions of the convicts- Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma, and AkshayKumar.