Nirbhaya convict files curative plea in SC against death sentence

New Delhi, Jan 09: Vinay Kumar Sharma, one of the convicts in 2012 Delhi gangrape and murder case has filed a curative petition before the Supreme Court.

The curative plea is the final appeal in the Supreme Court and is filed after a review petition is rejected. If the Curative Petition is rejected by the top court then a Mercy Petition before the President of India could also be preferred.

In his curative plea, Vinay said his young age has been erroneously rejected as a mitigating circumstance.

"The petitioner's socio-economic circumstances, number of family dependants including ailing parents, good conduct in jail and probability of reformation have not been adequately considered leading to gross miscarriage of justice," the plea said.

A Delhi court pronounced the death warrants against the four death-row convicts - Mukesh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) - on Tuesday and they will be hanged at 7 am on January 22.

Nirbhaya, a 23-year-old paramedic student, was gang-raped and brutalised on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012, inside a moving bus in south Delhi by the four men, along with two others, before being dumped on the road.

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

Of the six persons convicted, one allegedly committed suicide in jail and another, a juvenile, was released from a reformation home after serving a three-year term.