Nirbhaya Case: Supreme Court Rejects Convict Pawan's Curative Plea

The Supreme Court on Monday, rejected the curative petition of death row convict Pawan Gupta sentenced to death in the gruesome gangrape and murder of a physiotherapy intern, Nirbhaya, in December 2012. Pawan Gupta, 25, filed the plea through his lawyer A P Singh, claiming that he was a juvenile at the time of the crime and sought commutation of the death sentence to life imprisonment.

The hanging of the four death row convicts, Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan Kumar Gupta, Vinay Kumar Sharma (26) and Akshay Singh (31) is scheduled for March 3 at 6 am, as per the death warrants issued by the Patiala House Court on February 17.

With the rejection of the curative petition, Pawan has now exhausted the last judicial option open to him. The other death row convicts in the case have exhausted all the legal remedies available to them. Two death row convicts, Pawan Gupta and Akshay Singh moved the Patiala House Court on Saturday seeking stay on the execution of death warrants.

Akshay has cited his fresh mercy petition before the President of India, while Pawan submitted that he had moved a curative plea before the apex Court. The trial court has sought a response from Tihar Jail authorities by Monday.

CJI Agrees To List Activist Harsh Mander's Plea On Delhi Riots For Wednesday

Meanwhile, the Chief Justice of India has agreed to list the hearing of activist Harsh Mander plea demanding urgent directives with regard to the Delhi violence and in registering FIRs against BJP leaders, Anurag Thakur and Kapil Mishra . The Chief Justice, SA Bobde is reported to have said that courts cannot prevent incidents from happening and are aware of their limitations. We stand for peace, but our powers are limited, the CJI is quoted by the media as saying.