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Pawan Kumar Gupta v. State of NCT of Delhi

Writ Petition (Criminal) · 2020 INSC 324Decided 20 Mar 2020
Writ Petition (Criminal) No. 122 of 2020
Justice R. Banumathi · Justice Ashok Bhushan · Justice A.S. Bopanna

Background

Pawan Kumar Gupta, the youngest of the four convicts in the 2012 Delhi gang-rape and murder ("Nirbhaya") case, challenged rejection of his mercy petition hours before his scheduled execution. He principally argued he was a juvenile (16 years old) at the time of the offence and that this claim had never been finally determined, and also alleged he had been tortured in custody and that he may not have shared the "common intention" to justify a death sentence. By order of the Chief Justice of India, a special bench sat at 2:30 a.m. on 20 March 2020 to hear the matter.

Decision Breakdown

The Court found the juvenility claim had, in fact, already been conclusively rejected at every level, the Juvenile Justice Board, the Sessions Court, the Delhi High Court, and the Supreme Court itself in an earlier SLP, so it was not an open question. Applying the same narrow standard of review for presidential mercy decisions used in the companion cases of his co-convicts (Epuru Sudhakar), it found no ground of non-application of mind, mala fide, or arbitrariness, and held the torture allegation and common-intention argument had already been considered by the trial court, High Court, and Supreme Court in the main criminal appeal. The writ petition was dismissed.

Lesson Learnt

A claim that has already been finally and repeatedly rejected by multiple courts (like a juvenility plea) cannot be reopened through a fresh writ petition against a mercy-petition rejection; and courts can and do convene in the middle of the night when a case genuinely requires urgent adjudication, while still applying the ordinary, narrow legal standard.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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