SC hears petition from two of them to review 2017 verdict

The Supreme Court on Friday reserved the petitions filed by two of the four condemned convicts for a review of its 2017 verdict upholding the death penalty awarded to them in the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case.

The court had on May 5, 2017, upheld the verdict of the Delhi High Court and the trial court awarding the capital punishment to four convicts — Mukesh, 29; Pawan Gupta, 22; Vinay Sharma, 23; and Akshay Kumar Singh, 31 — in the brutal gangrape and murder of a 23-year-old paramedical student on December 16, 2012, in Delhi.

A special Bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices R. Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan reserved its order after hearing arguments on behalf of the convicts Vinay Sharma and Pawan Gupta, who sought a reviewof its verdict.

The court asked senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, representing the Delhi police, to file written submissions. Advocate A.P. Singh, for the convicts, argued that the death penalty was “cold-blooded killing.”

Mr. Singh will also file submissions by Tuesday.

The court had earlier reserved its verdict on the review petition filed by Mukesh. Akshay has not filed a review petition yet.

The paramedical student was gang-raped on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012, in a moving bus in south Delhi.

She died on December 29, 2012 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.

Another accused in the case, Ram Singh, died in Tihar Jail and a convicted juvenile was released from the reformation home after serving a three-year term as per the Juvenile Justice Act.