One of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya case, Pawan Gupta, filed a curative petition in the Supreme Court on February 28, seeking commutation of his death sentence to life term, days before the scheduled hanging.
A Delhi court had on February 17 issued a fresh death warrant for the four convicts, setting March 3 as the date for the hanging.
The apex court has also listed for March 5 the plea filed by the Centre challenging the Delhi High Court verdict which held that the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya case have to be executed together and not separately.
The high court had on February 5 dismissed the Centre's plea against the trial court's order staying the execution of death sentence of the four convicts.
The mercy petitions of three convicts – Mukesh, Vinay and Akshay – have already been dismissed by the President.
The apex court had earlier dismissed separate pleas filed by Mukesh and Vinay challenging the rejection of their mercy petitions by the President.
Akshay has not yet challenged the rejection of his mercy petition.
On December 16, 2012, a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who later came to be known as 'Nirbhaya' (fearless), was gang raped and savagely assaulted in a moving bus in South Delhi. She died after a fortnight.
Six people, including the four convicts and a juvenile, were named as accused. Ram Singh, the sixth accused, allegedly committed suicide in Tihar jail days after the trial began in the case.
The juvenile was released in 2015 after spending three years in a correctional home.
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