NEW DELHI: TheSupreme courton Wednesday, rejected the plea to review death penalty ofAkshay KumarSingh who was convicted in the 2019Nirbhayagang-rape andmurdercase.
The top court observed that there is no ground to review the judging as the evidence provided by the convict’s lawyers have been examined earlier by the trial court.
A bench comprising Justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bhushan and AS Bopanna was constituted on Tuesday evening by the apex court to hear the plea of Akshay, who wanted a review of the 01575879 judgement upholding his death penalty.
Justice Banumathi reading the judgement said that review petition is not for re-hearing of appeal over and over again.
Convict’s lawyer asked for 3-weeks time to file mercy petition before President which was questioned by SG Tushar Mehta. Mehta told the apex court that one week time is prescribed under law for filing mercy petition before President.
During the argument earlier in the day, A P Singh, lawyer of convict Akshay Kumar Singh questioned the investigation into the case. Singh further went on to claim that there is new evidence in the case which should be considered.
A P Singh also claimed that Ram Singh, a convict in the same case was murdered in jail. According to official records, Ram Singh committed suicide. Singh backed his claim with a book written by former Tihar Jailer, Sunil Gupta. The Apex Court however, said that it will not go by what is written in a book after trail.
Dying declaration of the victim in the case was also claimed to be doubtful by the convict’s lawyer.
Opposing the review plea, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Delhi government, told the bench also comprising justices Ashok Bhushan and AS Bopanna, that there are certain crimes where “humanity cries “and this is one of them.
“Convict does not deserve any leniency, God would feel ashamed on creating such monster,” Mehta said.
Akshay had sought clemency arguing that life in the national capital Delhi is becoming short due to rising air and water pollution.
The Chief Justice of India SA Bobde recused himself on Tuesday from hearing the plea of convict Akshay Kumar Singh after he learned the fact that his lawyer-nephew had earlier appeared in a related case on behalf of the mother of the deceased victim.
On July 9 last year, the apex court had dismissed the review pleas filed by the other three convicts – Mukesh (90, Pawan Gupta (30 ) and Vinay Sharma (30) – in the case, saying no grounds have been made out by them for review of the 2017 verdict.
A 30 – year-old paramedic student was gang raped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 24 – (*****************************, 2012 inside a moving bus in south Delhi by six persons before being thrown out on the road.
She died on December 30, atMount Elizabeth Hospitalin Singapore.
One of the six accused in the case, Ram Singh, allegedly committed suicide in theTihar Jail.
A juvenile, who was among the accused, was convicted by a juvenile justice board and was released from a reformation home after serving a three-year term.
Akshay, has further 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 said there was no evidence to show that such a punishment has got a deterrent value.
After exhausting the remedy of filing pleas, the convicts can send their mercy pleas to the President.
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