Supreme Court rejects Delhi gang-rape convict Vinay Sharma’s plea against mercy petition

Supreme Court dismisses petition by Vinay Sharma challenging dismissal of his mercy petition by President Ram Nath Kovind.

The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a petition by one of the December 2012 gang-rape convicts, Vinay Sharma, challenging the dismissal of his mercy petition by President Ram Nath Kovind.

A bench of justice R Banumathi, justice Ashok Bhushan and justice AS Bopanna held Vinay Sharma’s medical reports assert that he is psychologically fit and his medical condition is also stable.

The bench also held that all relevant material was considered by the President while rejecting his mercy plea.

Vinay Sharma’s mercy plea was rejected by the President on February 1 and his curative petition was dismissed by the Supreme Court on January 14.

He had claimed in his petition that he developed a mental illness because of the “brutal physical and mental torture” in jail.

“Given the brutal forms of physical and mental torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment that the petitioner suffered during his incarceration, he developed a mental illness which also led him to attempt suicide and inflict self-harm on several occasions,” the petition said.

The plea also pointed out the economic condition of Sharma’s family and other relevant material, which may not have been considered by the President.

Sharma also said there was a bias and non-application of mind by the council of ministers of the central and Delhi governments while advising the Lieutenant Governor and President respectively for dealing with his mercy plea.

He, therefore, sought commutation of his death sentence to life imprisonment.

The four convicts — Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Thakur — were convicted for the gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman in a moving bus in Delhi on December 16, 2012, and were sentenced to death by the trial court in 2013.

Their conviction and sentence were confirmed by the Delhi high court in 2014 and the Supreme Court in May 2017.

The review petitions filed by Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma against the Supreme Court judgment were also dismissed in 2018 and the review petition by Akshay was dismissed in December 2019.

Pawan Gupta is the only convict who is yet to file his curative and mercy petitions.

Delhi High Court had on February 5 ruled that all death row convicts in a given case should be executed together.