The Supreme Court has agreed to hear on Monday a plea filed by Pawan Gupta, one of the death-row convicts in the 2012 Delhi gangrape case, Bar and Bench reported. Gupta moved the top court on Friday, nearly a month after the Delhi High Court rejected his claim that he was a juvenile when he committed the crime. A three-judge bench will hear the case.
A court had earlier scheduled the execution of the four convicts for January 22, but one convict, Mukesh Singh, filed a mercy plea before President Ram Nath Kovind. On Friday, Kovind rejected the mercy petition, but due to the delay, new death warrants had to be issued against the four convicts. The executions are now scheduled for 6 am on February 1.
The other two convicts are Vinay Sharma and Akshay Kumar Singh.
Rejecting Gupta’s petition last month, the Delhi High Court had imposed a Rs 25,000 fine on his counsel AP Singh for wasting the court’s time and using delaying tactics. The court asked the Bar Council of Delhi to take action against the lawyer for filing the affidavit.
The case
Six men raped and brutally assaulted a 23-year-old physiotherapy student in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012. The woman succumbed to her injuries two weeks later at a hospital in Singapore. The gangrape triggered huge protests in the Capital and across the country. One convict died in prison, while a minor convict was sent to a detention home for juveniles and was released in December 2015.
The four were given the death penalty – first by a trial court in September 2013, which was upheld by the Delhi High Court six months later and the Supreme Court in May 2017.
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