'I was a juvenile back then': Nirbhaya convict Pawan moves SC over dismissal of claim

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One of the death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case moved the Supreme Court Friday challenging the Delhi High Court's order dismissing his claim of being a juvenile at the time of commission of offence in December 2012. Besides, the convict, Pawan Kumar Gupta, has sought a direction restraining the authorities from executing the death penalty, which has been scheduled for February 1.

He has challenged the high court's December 19 order by which it had also deprecated the conduct of his advocate for filing forged documents and not appearing in the court.

A Delhi court Friday issued fresh death warrants for February 1 against the four convicts -- four convicts -- Vinay Sharma (26), Mukesh Kumar (32), Akshay Kumar Singh (31) and Pawan (25) -- in the case.

Earlier in the day, President Ram Nath Kovind rejected the mercy petition of Mukesh. The other three condemned convicts have not yet availed of the constitutional remedy of filing the mercy petitions.

The apex court had on January 14 dismissed the curative petitions of Vinay and Mukesh against their conviction and capital punishment.

The two other convicts -- Akshay and Pawan -- have not yet filed curative petitions in the top court.

In his appeal filed through advocate A P Singh, Pawan has claimed that he was a juvenile at the time of the commission of offence on December 16, 2012.

While dismissing his plea, the high court had noted that Pawan had earlier raised the juvenility claim in his review petition against the death penalty awarded to him in the case before the Supreme Court which had dismissed his plea on July 9, last year.

In his plea before the high court, he had claimed that as per his school certificate his date of birth was October 8, 1996.

Pawan had earlier moved a trial court with a plea claiming to be juvenile at the time of the offence and it was dismissed on December 21 last year.

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 persons before she was thrown out on the road.

She died on December 29, 2012 at a hospital in Singapore.

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

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.

The top court in its 2017 verdict had upheld the capital punishment awarded to them by the Delhi High Court and the trial court.