SC DECISION TOMORROW IN DEC 16 CASE

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday will pronounce its verdict on the review plea of three convicts who have been sentenced to death for the December 2012 gangrape and murder of a 22-year-old in a moving bus in south Delhi.

The apex court had in 2017 upheld the death penalty awarded to them by the Delhi high court.

A three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, had reserved its order after hearing arguments on behalf of convicts Vinay Sharma and Pawan Gupta, who sought a review. The order on the review petition of a third convict, Mukesh, had also been reserved by the court earlier and will be decided on Monday.

The duo had urged the bench to spare them the death sentence as it was “cold-blooded killing in the name of justice.”

The lawyer of the convicts, AP Singh, has claimed that the dup was “not habitual offenders and have no criminal records, so the court must allow them to be reformed.”

The arguments were rebutted by the lawyer for the Delhi government.

Singh has also argued that the death penalty had been abolished in many countries.

“Execution kills criminals and not the crime,” he argued, claiming his clients were underage when they were nabbed for the alleged offence. The court was told that there were discrepancies in the dying statements of the victim.

The Supreme Court had on May 5, 2017, upheld the verdict of the Delhi High Court and the trial court awarding capital punishment to four convicts — Mukesh (29), Pawan Gupta (22), Vinay Sharma (23) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) — in the case.

Three of the convicts — Mukesh, Pawan and Vinay — had appealed for a review of the death sentence, while Akshay has not filed a review petition yet.

A fourth accused in the case, Ram Singh, had allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail, while a juvenile, who was also convicted, has served three years in a reformation home.