A three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on December 17 a review petition filed by one of the four condemned men in the Nirbhaya gang rape-and-murder case.
A circular issued by the court on Thursday said the petition filed by Akshay Kumar Singh would be heard in the open at 2 p.m. The circular mention the names of the three judges who would be on the Bench.
Akshay has sought a review of the apex court’s 2017 judgment confirming his death sentence. His petition said, “The state must not simply execute people 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...”
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Earlier plea dismissed
The apex court had in July last year dismissed the review petition filed by the other three convicts — Mukesh (30), Pawan Gupta (23) and Vinay Sharma (24). They are now left with the extremely rare remedy of filing curative petitions in the Supreme Court. A juvenile convict in the case has been released from reformation home after serving a three-year term. One of the accused in the case, Ram Singh, died in the Tihar jail in 2013, months after the brutal gang rape of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on December 16, 2012.
Akshay opted to file his review petition now when the authorities are reportedly making preparations in Tihar jail for the execution of the four convicts. He contended in his plea that his conviction and sentence were due to public and political pressure.
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“Death penalty is a premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human being by the State in the name of justice… Death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights, goes against the principle of non-violence,” he said in the review petition.