SC to consider on Monday curative plea of fourth death row convict Pawan Gupta

New Delhi: The Supreme Court will on Monday consider 'in chamber' the curative plea of one of the four death row convicts, Pawan Kumar Gupta, in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case, a day before their scheduled hanging.

The curative petition will be considered by a bench of justices N V Ramana, Arun Mishra, R F Nariman, R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan in the chamber of Justice Ramana.

Pawan, 25, against whom the death warrant has been issued for execution on March 3 along with the three other condemned prisoners, has claimed juvenility to seek commutation of sentence to life imprisonment.

He has filed the curative plea through lawyer A P Singh seeking setting aside of the apex court's earlier verdicts on appeals and review petitions in the case.

Advocate A P Singh said he has filed an application in the apex court registry on Sunday seeking an oral hearing on Pawan's curative plea in the open court.

Pawan is the last death row convict in the case to move the top court with his curative plea, the final legal remedy available to a person.

A 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who came to be known as 'Nirbhaya' (fearless), was gang raped and savagely assaulted in a moving bus in South Delhi on December 16, 2012. She died a fortnight later.

Pawan and another convict Akshay Singh also moved a trial court here on Saturday seeking stay on the execution of death warrants.

The trial court has issued notice to Tihar Jail authorities on the pleas, directing the officials to file their response by Monday.