Five years after the fateful night when a 23-year-old paramedic was brutally sexually assaulted on a moving bus in south Delhi’s Munirka and left to die on the side of the road, the convicts responsible for the “diabolical” act are yet to face the gallows.
On September 13, 2013, a fast-track court set up specially for the case had awarded death sentences to the convicts — Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur and Pawan Gupta — for 13 offences including gangrape, unnatural offence, murder and attempt to murder (the victim’s male friend).
When the death sentence order was sent to the Delhi High Court, it held a marathon three-and-a-half-month long hearing before handing down the same punishment to all four convicts on March 13, 2014.
Soon after this, the convicts moved the Supreme Court challenging the fast-track court and HC verdict. Two days later, on March 15, 2014, the apex court stayed the execution of death penalty of two of the four convicts. Later, it gave the same order for the remaining two convicts.
Meanwhile, in December 2015, the lone juvenile convict was released from a correctional home, triggering widespread protests across the country.
Three years after the HC verdict, the top court on May 5, 2017, upheld the death penalty to the four convicts saying the case falls under the category of “rarest of rare”. The convicts filed a review petition before the top court, an option available to an individual once their case has been decided by the Supreme Court itself.
Long legal battle
A review petition can be moved before the SC within 30 days of the date of judgment. It is heard by the same judges who had pronounced the first verdict. The hearing in the case takes place inside the judges’ chamber and not in an open court.
It is, however, rare that a review petition succeeds.
If it fails, the convicts can then move a curative petition, the last judicial resort available for redressal of grievances in a court of law.
It is circulated to a Bench of three of the senior-most judges and the judges of the top court who passed the judgment under challenge.
If the curative petition fails too, then the convicts can seek pardon from the President of India.
As per Article 72 of the Constitution, the President has the power “to grant pardons, etc, and to suspend, remit or commute sentences in certain cases”.
