Rape and murder of girl in temple is a small issue: New J&K Deputy CM

New Delhi, Jan 31: The Supreme Court Friday dismissed the plea filed by one of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case, Pawan Gupta, seeking review of its order rejecting his juvenility claim.

The review plea filed earlier in the day was taken up for consideration in-chamber by a bench comprising Justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bhushan and A S Bopanna. 

On January 20, the apex court had rejected the plea by Pawan who had challenged the Delhi High Court's order dismissing his juvenility claim.

Advocate A P Singh, who is representing Pawan in the case, said he filed a petition on his behalf seeking review of the top court's January 20 order on Friday.

While dismissing the plea, the top court had said there was no ground to interfere with the high court order that rejected Pawan's plea and his claim was rightly rejected by the trial court as also the high court.

It had said the matter was raised earlier in the review petition before the apex court which rejected plea of juvenility taken by Pawan and another co-accused Vinay Kumar Sharma and that order has attained finality.

Singh had argued that as per his school leaving certificate, he was a minor at the time of the offence and none of the courts, including trial court and high court, ever considered his documents.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Delhi Police, had said Pawan's claim of juvenility was considered at each and every judicial forum and it will be a travesty of justice if the convict is allowed to raise the claim of juvenility repeatedly and at this point of time.

The trial court on January 17 issued black warrants for the second time for the execution of all the four convicts in the case -- Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan (25), Vinay (26) and Akshay (31) -- in Tihar jail at 6 am on February 1. Earlier, on January 7, the court had fixed January 22 as the hanging date.

As of now, only Mukesh has exhausted all his legal remedies including the clemency plea which was dismissed by President Ram Nath Kovind on January 17 and the appeal against the rejection was thrown out by the Supreme Court on January 29.

Convict Akshay's curative petition was dismissed by the top court on January 30. Another death row convict Vinay moved mercy plea before President on January 29, which is pending.

Singh has also approached the trial court seeking stay on the execution scheduled on February 1, saying the legal remedies of some of the convicts are yet to be availed.

A 23-year-old paramedic student, referred to as Nirbhaya, was gang-raped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012, in a moving bus in south Delhi by six people before she was thrown out on the road.

Washington, May 29: Reiterating his offer to mediate on the border dispute between India and China, US President Donald Trump has said that he spoke with Narendra Modi about the "big conflict" and asserted that the Indian Prime Minister is not in a "good mood" over the latest flare-ups between the two countries.

Speaking with the reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on Thursday, Trump said a "big conflict" was going on between India and China.

"I like your prime minister a lot. He is a great gentleman," the president said.

"Have a big conflict …India and China. Two countries with 1.4 billion people (each). Two countries with very powerful militaries. India is not happy and probably China is not happy," he said when asked if he was worried about the border situation between India and China.

"I can tell you; I did speak to Prime Minister Modi. He is not in a good mood about what is going on with China," Trump said.

A day earlier, the president offered to mediate between India and China.

Trump on Wednesday said in a tweet that he was "ready, willing and able to mediate" between the two countries.

Responding to a question on his tweet, Trump reiterated his offer, saying if called for help, "I would do that (mediate). If they thought it would help" about "mediate or arbitrate, I would do that," he said.

India on Wednesday said it was engaged with China to peacefully resolve the border row, in a carefully crafted reaction to Trump's offer to arbitrate between the two Asian giants to settle their decades-old dispute.

"We are engaged with the Chinese side to peacefully resolve it," External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said, replying to a volley of questions at an online media briefing.

While the Chinese Foreign Ministry is yet to react to Trump's tweet which appears to have caught Beijing by surprise, an op-ed in the state-run Global Times said both countries did not need such a help from the US President.

"The latest dispute can be solved bilaterally by China and India. The two countries should keep alert on the US, which exploits every chance to create waves that jeopardise regional peace and order," it said.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Wednesday that both China and India have proper mechanisms and communication channels to resolve the issues through dialogue and consultations.

Trump previously offered to mediate between India and Pakistan on the Kashmir issue, a proposal which was rejected by New Delhi.

The situation in eastern Ladakh deteriorated after around 250 Chinese and Indian soldiers were engaged in a violent face-off on the evening of May 5 which spilled over to the next day before the two sides agreed to "disengage" following a meeting at the level of local commanders.

Over 100 Indian and Chinese soldiers were injured in the violence.

The incident in Pangong Tso was followed by a similar incident in north Sikkim on May 9.

Kota, Jan 4: Following the death of an infant in the morning, the death toll in JK Lon Hospital here has risen to 107, officials said on Saturday.

A three-member state government committee of doctors, who was sent to investigate the matter on December 23 and 24, found that Kota's JK Lone Hospital is short of beds and it requires improvement.

However, the committee gave a clean chit to the doctors for any lapses over the recent death of infants admitted there.

A Central government team reached the hospital on Saturday to take stock of the situation.

As per the government report, at least 91 infants lost their lives at the government hospital in December last year.

Meanwhile, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued a notice to Chief Secretary of Rajasthan to submit a detailed report within 4 weeks about the steps being taken to address the issue.

The Commission also asked the Chief Secretary to ensure that such deaths of the children do not recur in future due to lack of infrastructure and health facilities at the hospitals.