Nirbhaya gang-rape: SC to hear curative pleas of 2 death row convicts today

Lucknow: The Supreme Court will hear curative petitions of two of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape case today. A bench of Justices N V Ramana, Arun Mishra, RF Nariman, R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan will hear the curative petitions filed by convicts Vinay Sharma and Mukesh.

The petitions came just days after a Delhi court scheduled the execution of all the four convicts for January 22, at Tihar Jail.

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In the event of the curative plea being dismissed by the apex court, the convicts still have the option to file a mercy plea before President Ram Nath Kovind. Two other death-row convicts, Akshay and Pawan Gupta have not filed curative petitions.

In his plea filed through advocate A P Singh, convict Vinay Kumar Sharma said his “young age has been erroneously rejected as a mitigating factor”.

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The Supreme Court had recently dismissed a review petition filed by another convict Akshay Singh, to review its earlier order that confirmed the death penalty in the case.

The 23-year-old paramedic student was gangraped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a moving bus in Delhi by six persons before being thrown on the road. She died on December 29, 2012, at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.

In September 2013, a fast-track court held the four convicts guilty of 13 offences including gangrape, unnatural sexual assault and murder of the woman, and attempt to murder her male friend.

A fifth accused, Ram, hanged himself in his cell in Tihar, while the sixth, who was a juvenile at the time of the crime, was sent to a reform facility.

However, the Tihar jail administration performed dummy execution of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape case.

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