Nirbhaya Case: Convict Pawan Moves Supreme Court, Challenges Verdict Against Juvenile Claim

Pawan Kumar Gupta, one of the four convicts awarded death penalty in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case, approached the Supreme Court on Friday challenging the Delhi High Court rejecting his claim that he was a juvenile at the time of the offence in December, 2012. Pawan's plea against the Delhi High Court order comes on a day when a Delhi court issued a fresh death warrants against all the four convicts in the case for February 1 at 6 am. Tihar jail authorities had sought issuance of fresh death warrants against the four convicts after the mercy plea of Mukesh Kumar Singh, one of the four convicts, was dismissed by the President.

The Delhi High Court in December last year had dismissed the claim. The court also slammed his advocate for filing forged documents and not appearing in the court.

Seeking to be declared a juvenile at the time of occurrence of the incident, Pawan had alleged that his ossification test was not conducted by the investigating officers and claimed benefit under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act. He had said in his plea that the provision of section 7A of JJ Act lays down that a claim of juvenility may be taken before any court and it shall be recognised at any stage, even after final disposal of the case. Pawan sought that the concerned authority be directed to conduct his ossification test to ascertain his claim of juvenility.

Pawan, in his plea, had claimed that as per his school certificate his date of birth was October 8, 1996. However, as per the age verification report of the police, his father had stated that he was born on June 17, 1992, which meant he was over 18 years of age at the time of the offence on December 16, 2012.

A 23-year-old paramedic student 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. A juvenile involved in the crime was convicted by a juvenile justice board and released from a reformation home after serving a three-year term.