SC upholds death sentence to convicts in Nirbhaya case

The Supreme Court on Monday upheld the death sentence awarded to three out of the four convicts in the Delhi gang-rape and murder case.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan rejected the review pleas filed by the convicts - Mukesh (29), Pawan Gupta (22) and Vinay Sharma (23).

The fourth death row convict, Akshay Kumar Singh (31), has not filed a review petition against the apex court's May 5, 2017, judgement.

Advocate A P Singh, representing Akshay, 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.

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

One of the accused, Ram Singh, committed suicide in Tihar jail.

The juvenile 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.

Read: Though happy, Nirbhaya's family says fight will go on