(Image source from: india.com)

The Supreme Court is said to pronounce its verdict today, regarding the plea that has been made by the convict Vinay Sharma in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case. The plea by Vinay Sharma was challenging rejection of his mercy petition by the President of India Ram Nath Kovind.

The three judge bench of Justice R Banumathi has reserved its verdict after hearing to the arguments for almost two hours from his counsel AP Singh and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta saying that the verdict would be pronounced at noon on Friday.

The three judge bench has also included Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice AS Bopanna who had earlier dismissed the petition that had been made by Mukesh Kumar Singh who was another death row convict. The petition regarding Mukesh Kumar was challenging rejection of his mercy plea by the President Ram Nath Kovind.

Ram Nath Kovind who is the President of India has also rejected the mercy petition of convict Akshay where as no curative petition which is the last legal remedy that is available to the convict has been filed by the convict Pawan. The convict Pawan has also an option of filing a mercy plea.

The hearing on Centre’s plea has been deferred by the top court as it had been seeking separate execution of the four convicts to Friday and the convicts have also been asked to file their counter replies by then.

Anjana Prakash who is a senior advocate had been appointed as amicus curiae in order to represent the convict Pawan Gupta. In the mean time, a Delhi court has appointed advocated Ravi Qazi for representing the convict Pawan Gupta after he had refused to take a lawyer that had been offered by the Delhi Legal Services Authority (DLSA).

The petition that has been filed by the convict Vinay alleged that the decision that has been made by the President Ram Nath Kovind which was rejecting the mercy plea that was filed by him was communicated to him on 31st of January in the jail and that the rejection had been done in a mala fide manner.

The counsel of the convict Vinay Sharma has demanded the commutation of his death sentence to life time imprisonment as they had claimed that Vinay has developed mental illness due to the ill- treatment and torture while he had been in the prison.

The Nirbhaya case is an issue that had shook the country in the year 2012 when a young woman who was a physiotherapy intern had been gang- raped and molested in a moving bus and was thrown away on the streets of Delhi. She had struggle for he life and passed away the fortnight in a Singapore hospital where she had been transferred. The word Nirbhaya describes being strong and fearless.

By Shrithika Kushangi