Nirbhaya Rape Case: Will Nirbhaya Rapists Be Spared Death? Supreme Court Decision Today: 10 Facts

2012 Delhi Gang Rape Case: Supreme Court will decide today if the four men deserve any mercy

Highlights

Three convicts had sought reduction of death sentence to life term
23-year-old medical student was gang-rape in bus on December 16, 2012
Supreme Court had last year upheld high court and trial court verdicts

New Delhi: The Supreme Court will today decide whether the four men sentenced to death for raping and torturing a 23-year-old medical student on a moving bus in Delhi in 2012, triggering nationwide protests, deserve mercy. The top court will announce its verdict on a review plea filed by three of the four convicts seeking reduction of their death sentence to a life term.

Here is the 10-point cheatsheet:

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and justices R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan is expected to deliver its judgement on the pleas of Mukesh, 29, Pawan Gupta, 22 and Vinay Sharma, 23.
The fourth death row convict, Akshay Kumar Singh, 31, has not filed a review petition against the Supreme Court's judgement in May last year.
Advocate AP Singh, representing Akshay Kumar Singh, said, "Akshay has not filed a review petition yet. We will be filing it."
The Supreme Court on May 5 last year had upheld the verdict of the Delhi High Court and the trial court sentencing the four men to death for raping the young woman and fatally wounding her.
The men had then appealed to the court to review their sentences, saying it was "cold-blooded killing in the name of Justice". The court agreed to hear their request in November last year.
The Supreme Court had heard the arguments of both the sides and reserved their order in May this year.
The gang-rape and killing of the 23-year-old medical student on December 16, 2012, provoked rage and shock across India and led to big changes to laws on sexual crimes against women.
Of the six accused, bus driver Ram Singh killed himself in his prison cell. The youngest accused, just days short of 18 when he committed the crime, was sent to a juvenile home, from where he was released after serving a three-year term.
The woman, who died after 16 days in hospital, came to be known as "Nirbhaya" or fearless. Her parents have said that all the rapists should be hanged at the earliest, including the youngest.
In its judgement, the Supreme Court had said that the "brutal, barbaric and diabolic nature" of the crime could create a "tsunami of shock" to destroy a civilised society.