Nirbhaya case: Supreme Court rejects Special Leave Petition filed by death row convict Pawan Kumar Gupta

A three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court on Monday dismissed the  Special Leave Petition (SLP) filed by Pawan Kumar Gupta - one of the four death row convicts in the 2012 Delhi gang-rape case (aka the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder incident). The top court had earlier in the day said that it will pronounce its verdict at 2:30 PM.

Pawan had claimed that he was a juvenile at the time of the crime and therefore he should be considered by the law as such when meting out the punishment in the case. He had also alleged that the Delhi High Court had ignored this fact when upholding the death sentence to the convicts.

Pawan's lawyer, AP Singh, today stated before the three-judge Bench that Pawan's age was 17 years, 1 month and 20 days when the offence was committed and that is why his role should be considered as a juvenile in the case. However, he accused the Delhi High Court of ignoring this fact.

However, the Supreme Court on Monday dismissed Pawan's petition stating that there was no fresh ground in the matter. Justice Ashok Bhushan, who was present in the Bench, mentioned that the petition was dismissed last year but coming with some new information now will not be maintainable. "On July 9, 2018, Pawan's petition was dismissed by this court, but now how come you are coming with some new information? How will this be maintainable?" Justice Ashok Bhushan observed.

Following the rejection of the petition, Nirbhaya's mother Asha Devi said, "Their tactic to delay the hanging has been rejected. I'll be satisfied only when they're hanged on February 1. Just like they're delaying it one after another, they must be hanged one by one so that they understand what it means to toy with law."

Asha Devi, 2012 Delhi gang rape victim's mother: Their tactic to delay hanging has been rejected.I'll be satisfied only when they're hanged on Feb 1.Just like they're delaying it one after other, they must be hanged one by one so that they understand what it means to toy with law https://t.co/TrMRDOEIHf pic.twitter.com/wljyGjIBmb

— ANI (@ANI) January 20, 2020

Asha Devi has been fighting a long and difficult legal battle for over seven years, determined to see the criminals hanged. To be precise, it took more than seven years for her to see the light of justice. Why the legal system in this country is so wound-up that it takes such an abnormally long time to close a case, even after the establishment of a fast-track court for the proceedings, remains up for investigation later.

A Delhi Court had on January 7 issued death warrants against all four convicts involved in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder incident. According to the order, the rapists were to be hanged on January 22 at 7 AM. But later a fresh death warrant was issued and the date was shifted to February 1.

However, legal experts have noted that owing to the judicial procedures provided under India's legal system, it is possible that the death row convicts are delaying their ultimate fate by filing petitions and once they get rejected, sending mercy petitions to the President, one by one.

After the 23-year-old psychotherapy intern, dubbed 'Nirbhaya', was brutally gang-raped and murdered in Munirka, a neighbourhood in South Delhi on December 16, 2012, the incident generated tremendous public outroar and media coverage demanding justice for the victim.

The accused in the case - Akshay Kumar, Pawan Gupta, Mukesh Singh, Ram Singh, Vinay Sharma, and a minor boy - were promptly arrested under charges of sexual assault and murder. In 2013, one of the accused, Ram Singh, died in police custody of possible suicide. All of the remaining accused were convicted by a fast-track trial court of rape and murder, and while the juvenile was given the maximum sentence of three years imprisonment at a reform facility, the rest were sentenced to death by hanging. Subsequently, the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court upheld this judgment.