President rejects mercy petition of Nirbhaya convict Pawan Gupta

President Ram Nath Kovind on Wednesday rejected the mercy petition of Pawan Gupta, one of the four death row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case. Gupta was the last convict to file a mercy petition.

This comes after a Delhi court, on Monday, stayed for the third time the death sentence of four convicts in the case observing that they cannot be executed while a mercy petition is pending before the President.

Advocate AP Singh, who is representing the Nirbhaya convicts, had filed the mercy petition before the President of India on behalf of convict Pawan Gupta on Monday.

President Ram Nath Kovind had on February 5 rejected the mercy petition of convict Akshay Singh Thakur. So far, mercy petitions of Vinay Sharma and Mukesh Singh have also been rejected.

However, a "complete" mercy petition of convict Akshay Singh Thakur has also been filed claiming that the previous one, which was rejected by the President, did not have "complete facts".

Meanwhile, Pawan Gupta's curative petition seeking commutation of his death sentence to life imprisonment was also dismissed by the Supreme Court on Monday.

So far, three death warrants have been issued and stayed in the matter.

The case pertains to the brutal gang rape and killing of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, by six people including a juvenile in Delhi. The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later.