SC to hear plea on juvenility of Nirbhaya case convict

The Supreme Court on Monday will hear a plea of Pawan Gupta, one of death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case. In the plea, Gupta has claimed that he was a juvenile at the time of the crime.

A three-judge bench comprising Justice R Banumathi, Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice AS Bopanna will hear Pawan's plea challenging the Delhi High Court's December 19 order, rejecting his plea of being a juvenile at the time of the commission of the offence.

In his plea filed through advocate AP Singh, Pawan has claimed that new evidence of his school certificate has emerged, which states his date of birth as October 8, 1996.

The petition also claims that the High Court passed the order without the presence of his counsel. "This is in violation of the basic principle of natural justice," he said in the plea.

Advocate Singh argued that when the question of age of Pawan was decided by the trial court in 2013, his client was not represented by any counsel. The trial court went on to decide his age based on a police report, said Singh.