AGENCIES, New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed the curative petition of Pawan Gupta, one of the four convicts who has been awarded the death sentence in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case, against the dismissal of his juvenility claim. They are scheduled to be hanged at 5.30 am on March 20 .
A six-judge bench headed by Justice N V Ramana dismissed the plea, saying “no case is made out.”
“We have gone through the curative petition and the relevant documents. In our opinion, no case is made out within the parameters indicated in the decision of this court in Rupa Ashok Hurra vs Ashok Hurra and Another…. Hence, the curative petition is dismissed,” the brief order of the Supreme Court read.
The Delhi High Court had on Wednesday dismissed an application filed by another death row convict Mukesh Singh to challenge a trial court order rejecting his plea for stay on his execution on the ground that he was not present in Delhi on December 16, 2012, the night of the crime. Justice Brijesh Sethi had observed that “there are no grounds to interfere in the detailed and reasoned order dated March 17, 2020 passed by the trial court.”
After the hearing, Nirbhaya’s mother Asha Devi said, “Court gave them so many opportunities that they have become habituated of bringing something ahead of hanging and get it postponed. Now our courts are aware of their tactics. Nirbhaya will get justice tomorrow.”
Fresh warrants for the hanging of four convicts—Mukesh Kumar Singh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Kumar Sharma, and Akshay Kumar—in Tihar Central Jail have been issued by a Delhi court.
