The Supreme Court to pronounce the order at 1 PM today. The court is hearing the review petition of Akshay Kumar Singh, one of the convicts in the case
New Delhi: On Wednesday the Supreme Court will hear the review petition filed by Akshay Kumar Singh, one of the four men convicted in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case.
On Tuesday, Chief Justice of India SA Bobde had recused himself from hearing the petition and adjourned the matter till Wednesday.
The Supreme Court to pronounce the order at 1 PM today. The court is hearing the review petition of Akshay Kumar Singh, one of the convicts in the case.
The CJI S A Bobde said he will constitute a bench Wednesday at 10.30 am and the new bench will take up the review plea filed by Akshay Kumar against capital punishment at 2 pm. H
After the CJI’s recusal, a bench comprising three Justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bhushan and A S Bopanna was constituted on Tuesday evening by the Supreme court to hear the review plea of the death row convict at 10.30 AM tomorrow.
A special bench comprising the CJI SA Bobde and Justices Banumathi and Bhushan commenced hearing on the review plea Akshay, 33, while asking his lawyer A P Singh to conclude the submission.
“List these matters on December 18, before another Bench of which the Chief Justice is not a member,” the bench said in the order.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said the Supreme court has already ordered setting up of special courts in each districts where more than one hundred cases of sexual assault cases are pending under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO).
On Tuesday, the Supreme court in its administrative order decided to set up a 2-judge committee of Justices Subhash Reddy and M R Shah to look into the issue of expeditious disposal of rape cases across the country.
Advocate A P Singh, appearing for Akshay Kumar, started his submission saying that the case in hand has suffered political and media pressure and grave injustice has been done to the convict.
Akshay Kumar had sought clemency arguing life in national capital is anyway becoming short due to rising air and water pollution.
On July 9 2018, the Supreme court had dismissed the review pleas filed by the other three convicts — Mukesh (30), Pawan Gupta (23) and Vinay Sharma (24) — in the case, said that no grounds have been made out by them for review of the 2017 verdict.
The 23-year-old was gang raped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a moving bus in south Delhi by six persons before being thrown out on the street.
A juvenile was among the accused, was convicted by a juvenile justice board and was released from a reformation home after serving a three-year term.
The Apex court in its 2017 verdict had upheld the capital punishment awarded to them by the Delhi High Court and the trial court in the case.
“The state must not simply execute individual to prove that it is attacking terror or violence against women. It must persistently work towards systematic reforms to bring about change. Executions only kill the criminal, not the crime…,” said Akshay in the review plea.
Akshay Kumar, lodged in a jail further he said that death penalty entails “cold blooded killing” and does not provide convicts the chance to reform themselves.
The plea referred to the moral reasons for abolition of the death penalty and he said there was no evidence to show that such a punishment has got a deterrent value.
The convicts, Akshay Kumar , can still file healing pleas in the top court against their conviction and death penalty in the case.
After exhausting the remedy of filing healing pleas, the convicts can send their mercy pleas to the President of India.
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