Nirbhaya Case: SC Dismisses Convict Pawan Gupta’s Curative Petition

New Delhi: The Supreme Court dismissed a curative petition by Pawan Gupta, one of the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case, on Monday, a day before their scheduled date of hanging.

Pawan Gupta (25) was the only convict in the case who had not exhausted his legal options of a curative petition. In his plea filed last week, he had urged the court that his death sentence be changed to life imprisonment.

No case is made out for re-examining the conviction and the punishment of the convict, said a five-judge bench headed by Justice NV Ramana.

He can now file a mercy plea before President Ram Nath Kovind. The mercy petitions of the three other convicts — Mukesh Kumar Singh, Vinay Kumar Sharma and Akshay Kumar — have already been dismissed by the President.

The Supreme Court had earlier dismissed the pleas filed by Mukesh Kumar Singh and Vinay Kumar Sharma that challenged the rejection of their mercy petitions. Akshay Kumar has not yet challenged the rejection of his mercy petition.