Nirbhaya case: SC rejects death row convict\'s plea claiming juvenility

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Monday rejected the plea of a death row convict in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case challenging the Delhi High Court order, which had dismissed his claim of being a juvenile at the time of the offence.

A bench comprising Justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bushan and A S Bopanna dismissed the plea of convict Pawan Kumar Gupta and upheld the Delhi High Court verdict.

Gupta's counsel had 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.