Nirbhaya case: SC to Hear Pawan Gupta’s Curative Plea Claiming he Was a Minor at the Time of Offence

In his plea, Pawan Gupta has claimed that "at the time of the offence, he was a minor and thereby his death sentence should be commuted to life imprisonment".

New Delhi: The Supreme Court will on Thursday hear the curative petition of one of the convicts of 2012 Nirbhaya case, Pawan Gupta. In his plea, Gupta has claimed that “at the time of the offence, he was a minor and thereby his death sentence should be commuted to life imprisonment”.

On Wednesday, the Delhi High Court dismissed an application filed by another convict Mukesh Singh, challenging the trial court order that had dismissed his plea, seeking stay on the execution claiming he was not present in Delhi on December 16, 2012, the night of crime.

A single-judge HC Bench, headed by Justice Brijesh Sethi, while dismissing the plea filed through advocate M.L. Sharma had observed, “There are no grounds to interfere in the in the detailed and reasoned order dated 17.03.2020, passed by the trial court.”

“There is nothing on record to suggest that trial stands vitiated because material evidence was concealed. There is, thus, no infirmity, illegality or irregularity in the order passed by the trial court,” the court had said.

Meanwhile, in what could be another ploy to delay hanging, wife of a Nirbhaya convict filed for a divorce in a local court in Bihar’s Aurangabad. In the plea, the wife of convict Akshay Kumar Singh said she does not want to live the life of a widow as her husband is set to be hanged on March 20. The court has posted the matter for March 19.

Notably, the convicts are scheduled to be hanged on March 20, 5:30 AM.