
The Supreme Court on Monday will pronounce its verdict on the petition filed by four convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape-murder case challenging the death sentence.
The apex court will give its verdict following a review plea that was filed by two of the convicts who sought to reduce the capital punishment to a life term.
The Supreme Court had on May 5, 2017 upheld the verdict of the Delhi High Court and the trial court sentencing the four men - Mukesh (29), Pawan Kumar Gupta (22), Vinay Sharma (23) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) to death for raping the woman, fatally wounding her and leaving her to die by the road.
On December 16, 2012, a 23-year-old paramedic student in Delhi was gang-raped by five men and a minor boy on a moving bus that she boarded from south Delhi's Mehrauli area along with a friend. After a prolonged battle at a Delhi hospital, she breathed her last after being flown to Singapore for better medical attention.
The horrific incident led to massive protests across the country while thousands of youths in Delhi came out on the streets and braved police action to seek action against the six accused in the Nirbhaya case.
Six people were accused in the case. Of these, Ram Singh committed suicide in jail. The youngest accused was reportedly days short of turning 18 on the day of the crime, and was sent to a juvenile home -- a move that also triggered a huge row.