Nirbhaya case: Supreme Court dismisses plea on convict Pawan Gupta's juvenile status

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case convict on death row, Pawan Kumar Gupta's plea regarding his juvenile status.

Arguing that the prosecution deliberately concealed his age, Pawan had filed a plea in the apex court to challenge the Delhi High Court order that declined to entertain his plea that he was a juvenile when Nirbhaya was brutally gang-raped in December 2012.

A bench, comprising Justices R Banumathi, dismissed the plea of death row convict Pawan Kumar Gupta and upheld the Delhi High Court verdict.
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The top court said that there is no ground to interfere with the high court's earlier order and added that it was rightly rejected.

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The convict's lawyerstated that Pawan was 17 years, 1 month and 20 days old at the time of the crime and based his argument on this to why his role should be considered as a juvenile in the case.

On January 17, the DelhiHigh Court had rejected the review petition of Pawan and he had challenged this before the apex court.

A Delhi court issued a fresh death warrant against the four death-row convicts in the Nirbhaya rape case, who will now be executed on February 1 at 6 am.

Four convicts, Vinay, Akshay, Pawan, and Mukesh were convicted and sentenced to death for raping a 23-year-old woman in a moving bus in the national capital on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012.

(With inputs from agencies)