New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Monday reserved its verdict on Nirbhaya convict Pawan Kumar Gupta’s petition against a Delhi HC order rejecting his claim that he was juvenile at the time of committing the crime on December 16, 2012.
The order will be pronounced at 2.30 pm later in the day.
Earlier, the Supreme Court commenced hearing on the plea. A bench headed by Justice R Banumathi is hearing the plea.
Gupta’s counsel told the bench that the convict was minor at the time of commission of offence in December 2012 and the high court had wrongly dismissed plea.
The bench said the claim of being a juvenile was not taken initially during trial in the Nirbhaya case. However, Gupta’s lawyer contended that it was taken as a ‘mitigating circumstance’ at the time of sentencing in the case.
Gupta had moved the apex court on Friday. He has also sought a direction restraining the authorities from executing the death penalty, scheduled for February 1.
A Delhi court on Friday issued fresh death warrants for February 1 against the four convicts—Vinay Sharma, Mukesh Kumar, Akshay Kumar Singh and Pawan—in the case.
A 23-year-old paramedic student, referred to as Nirbhaya, was gang-raped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012, in a moving bus in south Delhi by six people before she was thrown out on the road. (Agencies)
