The Supreme Court today upheld the death penalty for three rapists in the ‘Nirbhaya’ gang rape and murder case.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and justices R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan delivered the judgement on the pleas of Mukesh (29), Pawan Gupta (22) and Vinay Sharma (23).
The fourth death row convict, Akshay Kumar Singh (31), did not file a review petition against the apex court’s May 5, 2017 judgement.
Advocate A P Singh, representing Akshay Kumar, said, “Akshay has not filed a review petition yet. We will be filing it.”
The apex court in its 2017 verdict had upheld the capital punishment awarded to them by the Delhi High Court and the trial court in the case of gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old paramedic student on December 16, 2012 in New Delhi.
She was gang raped on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a running bus in South Delhi by six people and severely assaulted before being thrown out on the road. She succumbed to her injuries on December 29, 2012 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.
One of the accused in the case, Ram Singh, had allegedly committed suicide in Tihar jail.
A juvenile, who was among the accused, was convicted by a juvenile justice board. He was released from a reformation home after serving a three-year term.
In its judgement, the Supreme Court had said that the “brutal, barbaric and diabolic nature” of the crime could create a “tsunami of shock” to destroy a civilised society.
