A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court will hear on January 14 curative petitions of two of the four death row convicts in the December 16 gangrape case. A bench of Justices N V Ramana, Arun Mishra, RF Nariman, R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan will hear the curative petitions filed by Vinay Sharma and Mukesh, news agency PTI reported.
In his plea filed through advocate A P Singh, convict Vinay Kumar Sharma said his “young age has been erroneously rejected as a mitigating factor”.
Sharma, meanwhile, said his “socio-economic circumstances, number of family dependents including ailing parents, good conduct in jail and probability of reformation have not been adequately considered leading to a gross miscarriage of justice”.
A Delhi court had Tuesday issued death warrants against Sharma (26) and the other convicts, Mukesh (32), Pawan Gupta (25) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31). They are scheduled to be hanged at Tihar Jail on January 22 at 7 am. The accused were convicted and sentenced to death in September 2013. The conviction and sentencing were upheld by both HC and SC.
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In the event of the curative plea being dismissed by the apex court, the convicts still have the option to file a mercy plea before President Ram Nath Kovind. Two other death-row convicts, Akshay and Pawan Gupta, have not filed curative petitions.
The 23-year-old paramedic student was gangraped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a moving bus in south Delhi by six persons before being thrown out on the road. She died on December 29, 2012, at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.
In September 2013, a fast-track court held the four convicts guilty of 13 offences including gangrape, unnatural sexual assault and murder of the woman, and attempt to murder her male friend.
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