SC refuses to entertain Nirbhaya convict's plea against Delhi HC order rejecting innocence claim

The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a petition filed by Mukesh Singh, one of the death row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case, challenging a Delhi High Court's order rejecting his claim that he was not in the national capital when the crime was committed.

A three-judge bench headed by Justice R Banumathi and also comprising Justice AS Bopanna and Justice Ashok Bhushan refused to entertain the plea and said that it didn't find any ground in the petition.

Advocate ML Sharma, appearing for Mukesh Singh, told the court that even after the execution the facts must be examined so that in future no other innocent should become a victim of the failure of justice due to media pressure.

"Truth should be seen by the world. I want to look into the documents which were not available to me. The papers relating to the arrest and remand of Mukesh Singh are documents between two state governments," Sharma said.

The apex court said that the documents are a matter of trial and once the trial is over the appeal process is over there is no forum to raise all of this.

Delhi High Court had on Wednesday dismissed the plea seeking quashing of his death penalty claiming he was not in the city when the incident happened in New Delhi on December 16, 2012.

Earlier today, the apex court dismissed the curative petition of Pawan Gupta, another convict in the matter, who claimed juvenility at the time of the crime.

This comes as the four convicts -- Mukesh Singh, Akshay Singh Thakur, Vinay Sharma and Pawan Gupta -- are scheduled to be hanged at 5.30 am on March 20.

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 the national capital. The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later.