Nirbhaya case convict moves Supreme Court, claims he was juvenile in 2012

New Delhi, Jan 17: Pawan Gupta, one of the convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case on Friday moved the Supreme Court, claiming that he was a juvenile in 2012.

Gupta has challenged Delhi high court order of December 19 and should be tried accordingly.

Earlier in the day, resident Ram Nath Kovind on Friday rejected the mercy plea of Mukesh Singh. The rejection came soon after the Union Home Ministry forwarded the petition to the president on Friday morning. Mukesh Singh had filed the mercy petition a few days ago.

The four convicts - Mukesh Singh (32), Vinay Sharma (26), Akshay Kumar Singh (31) and Pawan Gupta (25) were to be hanged on January 22 at 7 a.m. in Tihar Jail. A Delhi court had issued their death warrants on January 7.

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 being thrown out on the road. She died on December 29 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.

The Supreme Court had in 2017 upheld the capital punishment awarded to them by the Delhi High Court and a trial court.

One of the six accused in the case, Ram Singh, allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail.

A juvenile, who was among the accused, was convicted by a juvenile justice board and was released from a reformation home after serving a three-year term.