Last-ditch effort fails

HC nixes Nirbhaya case convict Gupta plea that he was a juvenile in 2012

THE Delhi High Court on Thursday dismissed the claim of one of the four convicts, facing the gallows in the Nirbhaya gang rape-and-murder case, that he was a juvenile at the time of the offence in December 2012 and deprecated the conduct of his advocate for filing forged documents and not appearing in the court.

Justice Suresh Kumar Kait noted that convict Pawan Kumar Gupta had earlier raised the juvenility claim in his review petition against the death penalty awarded to him in the case before the Supreme Court which had dismissed his plea on July 9 last year.

Irked over the conduct of advocate A P Singh, who filed the petition for Pawan, the high court imposed a cost of Rs 25,000 on the counsel for playing hide and seek.