On Juvenile Claim, Convict Pawan Gupta Approaches Supreme Court

Pawan Gupta’s Plea: The Nirbhaya convicts will hang on February 1 as per the fresh death warrants.

New Delhi:

One of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya case, Pawan Gupta, has filed a petition in the Supreme Court against last year’s Delhi High Court order in which his claim that he was a juvenile at the time of the crime was dismissed. The move comes after fresh death warrants were issued today for the men convicted of raping and murdering a 23-year-old paramedical student in 2012.

Convict Pawan Gupta had claimed he was a minor, “an innocent boy” at the time of the crime and should be punished under laws for juveniles – which means a lesser prison term. He had also claimed that proper medical tests to establish his age were not done at the time. The High Court had dismissed his claims in December last year.

Vinay Sharma, Mukesh Singh, Akshay Kumar Singh and Pawan Gupta were to be hanged at Delhi’s Tihar Jail on January 22, the same trial court judge had declared last week, signing a death warrant more than seven years after the young girl was gang-raped on a moving bus, tortured and killed.

After the Supreme Court refused to entertain their curative petition on Tuesday, Mukesh Singh filed a mercy plea with the President. The Delhi Government, seeking a fresh date for their hanging, said the pattern followed by the convicts to file their mercy pleas separately was a strategy to “frustrate the process of law”. The government, citing rules, also said a 15-day notice had to be given to the convicts before their hanging even if the President rejected their mercy petition.  

After President Ram Nath Kovind rejected Mukesh Singh’s mercy plea today, fresh warrants, rescheduling their hanging to 6am, February 1, were issued today.

The new death warrants are dated to exactly 14 days from today, in accordance with a law that states convicts to be executed must have a reprieve from the time their mercy plea is turned down.

The victim’s mother, Asha Devi, had on Thursday demanded that the date of execution should not be extended.

“The date of execution should not be extended. There are several loopholes and escape routes for the convicts’ benefit, but for somebody like me — who had to do the rounds of the courts for so many years after witnessing the death of my only daughter — there seems to be no respite at all. Why should I suffer because of the negligence of Tihar Jail officials and the Delhi government?” she had said.