2012 Delhi gangrape case: SC dismisses Pawan Gupta's curative plea; Delhi court dismisses plea to stay execution of death warrant, hearing at 2 pm today

Rejecting the application for stay on execution of one of the death row convicts in the 2012 Delhi gangrape and murder case, the Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a curative petition filed by Pawan Kumar Gupta. This was the last legal remedy for the death row convict. Soon after the Supreme Court decision, reports said that Gupta had filed a mercy petition with the President of India.

Advocate informed the trial court that the convict has filed the mercy plea and added that he filed the plea as soon as he got media reports of the curative being dismissed by the Supreme Court. However, reports confirmed that the court has not stayed the execution of the death warrant. According to Live Law , the Patiala House court has dismissed the application for stay of execution of death warrant, which implies that hanging will take place as scheduled at 6 am on 3 March (tomorrow) at Delhi’s Tihar Jail.

All four convicts in the case — Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan Kumar Gupta (25), Vinay Kumar Sharma (26) and Akshay Singh (31) – will be executed tomorrow.

Gupta’s advocate Pawan Singh intimated the judge that Pawan’s mercy petition has been filed. Live Law reported that while the refusal to stay execution of death warrant continues to be applicable currently, in light of new facts, the court will hear submissions regarding filing of mercy at 2 pm.

On Monday, a five-judge bench headed by Justice NV Ramana said that no case is made out for re-examining the conviction and the punishment of the convict. “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, reported in 2002 (4) SCC 388. Hence, the curative petition is dismissed,” the bench said in its order .

Other members comprising the bench were Justices Arun Mishra, RF Nariman, R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan. Pawan, on Friday, had filed a curative petition before the Supreme Court, seeking commutation of his death sentence to life imprisonment. He was the fourth convict in the case to file a curative petition. The top court has already rejected the curative petitions of the remaining three.

In his curative plea, Pawan pleaded when was offence was committed his age 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”.

This information was suppressed by the State throughout the proceedings, Pawan had claimed. He was the lone convict who had not exhausted his legal remedies of filing a curative petition and subsequent mercy plea with the President.

The decision comes after a fresh death warrant was issued by a trial court on 17 February.

The mercy petitions of three convicts – Mukesh, Vinay and Akshay – have already been dismissed by the President. The top court had earlier dismissed separate pleas filed by Mukesh and Vinay challenging the rejection of their mercy petitions by the President.

The case pertains to the brutal gangrape and killing of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the night of 16 December, 2012, by six people including a juvenile in Delhi. The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later.

The juvenile was released in 2015 after spending three years in a correctional home.

With inputs from PTI