Nirbhaya Gang-rape: Supreme Court Dismisses Review Petition of Three Convicts

The court had reserved its order on the review in May.

Author: India.com News Desk

Updated: July 9, 2018, 2:47 PM IST

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A new bench will now have to be constituted (File photo)

New Delhi, July 9:  Upholding its earlier order of death sentence to the four convicts in Nirbhaya gang-rape case, the Supreme Court on Monday also dismissed the review pleas filed by three of the four convicts seeking a reduction in their death sentence to a life term. On May 4, the court had reserved its order on the review petitions filed by convicts Pawan Gupta(31), Vinay Sharma (25), and Mukesh (31). The fourth convict, Akshay Thakur (33) did not file a review petition. The apex court had granted him three weeks to file his review petition. (Also read: Live Updates of Supreme Court Hearing)

A three-judge bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra, Justice Ashok Bhushan and R Bhanumathi pronounced the verdict in the case. Reacting to the Supreme Court decision, Nirbhaya’s mother Asha Devi said, “I hope every rape victim gets justice. There’s nothing like a juvenile. The juvenile in the Nirbhaya case committed a heinous crime but still got away.”

According to the prosecution, 23-year-old paramedical student Nirbhaya was assaulted and raped by six people in a moving bus in South Delhi and thrown out with her male friend on the night of December 16, 2012. She subsequently died during the treatment at a Singapore hospital on December 29 the same year.

Out of the six convicts, prime accused Ram Singh had allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar jail in 2013 while another was found to be a minor by the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) and sentenced to three years’ term at a probation home. In 2013, Saket’s Fast track Court had pronounced death sentence to all the four convicts. The trial court then referred the case to the Delhi High Court for confirmation of their death sentence.

In 2017, the Delhi High Court had reserved its verdict on confirming the death sentence and appeals of the four convicts. Then, the Supreme Court upheld the Delhi High Court order of death penalty to the four convicts following which, three of them appealed before the apex court for a review of the judgement. In their submission, two of the convicts had reportedly said that the judiciary cannot decide whether a person will live or die as “execution kills criminals but not the crime.”  While upholding the conviction, the apex court had said that the “brutal, barbaric and diabolic nature” of the crime could create “tsunami of shock” to destroy a civilised society.

All the six accused in the Nirbhaya gang-rape case were arrested. Out of the six convicts, prime accused Ram Singh had allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar jail in 2013 during the trial of the case.