Nirbhaya Case: SC dismisses Akshay's curative petition for stay on death sentence

The Supreme Court on Thursday, January 30, dismissed the curative petition filed by the lawyer for one of the death row convicts of the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case – Akshay Singh. Akshay is seeking a commutation of his death sentence to life imprisonment, the third convict out of four to do so. A five-judge bench of the top court, headed by Justice NV Ramana, said, there will be no stay on the death warrant as the plea made no case.

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Advocate AP Singh, who has filed the curative petition on behalf of Akshay has argued that the present curative petition should be allowed by the apex court and it should set aside the May 5, 2017 order, which upheld the death sentence of the convicts.

"Modify the sentence of the petitioner, to life imprisonment as it serves all the purposes that the death penalty claims to serve and protects society from the impending reality in the near-future in which torture and murder are equated with justice as a panacea for all social evils," the petition said.

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Plea's argument

The plea stated that lack of criminal antecedents, erroneous reliance on deterrence, and the probability of reformation, socio-economic circumstances, non-consideration of constitution bench judgment, were not considered by the courts while awarding his client to death. Supreme Court had dismissed Akshay's review petition in December last year. All the four convicts are set to be hanged on February 1.

On Wednesday, a three-judge bench of the SC had dismissed the plea of another death row convict Mukesh Kumar Singh challenging the rejection of his mercy petition by the President. Mukesh is now exhausted of all legal options. The same day, another convict Vinay Kumar Sharma filed a mercy petition to President Ram Nath Kovind for the commutation of his capital punishment to a life sentence.

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About the Nirbhaya Rape Case

A 23-year-old paramedic student Nirbhaya was gang-raped inside a running bus by six persons on December 16 in 2012 in Delhi. The victim was heinously mutilated and thrown out on the road along with her male friend and succumbed to injuries a few days later, with the entire nation praying for her by way of mass demonstrations and candle-light marches.

Out of the six convicts, one committed suicide in prison while another, a juvenile, served maximum punishment of three years in a reform home and was set free in 2015. The remaining four rapists were convicted and handed a death sentence by a trial court in 2013, upheld by the Delhi High Court in March 2014. The Supreme Court too upheld the Delhi High Court's verdict in 2017.

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