NEW DELHI, DEC 17
Chief Justice of India SA Bobde recused himself from hearing the review petition filed by Akshay Thakur, one of the four men convicted in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case and adjourned the matter till Wednesday.
The CJI said he will constitute a bench Wednesday at 10.30 am and the new Bench will take up the review plea filed by Thakur against capital punishment at 2 pm. He recused himself saying that his nephew had once appeared on behalf of the victim.
Justices R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan were the other judges on the Bench that was to hear the case on Tuesday.
In his petition, Thakur had sought clemency on the bizarre ground that life in Delhi is anyway becoming short due to rising air and water pollution. The Bench will also hear the counsel appearing for the victim’s mother who has moved the top court opposing the plea.
Nirbhaya’s parents were also present in the Supreme Court on Tuesday for the hearing.
Akshay Thakur along with Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma, Mukesh Singh, and Ram Singh were convicted of the brutal gang-rape and murder of the 23-year-old physiotherapy student who came to be called Nirbhaya.
Thakur was the only one of the four Nirbhaya convicts not to have filed a review plea so far.
On July 9, 2018, the apex court had dismissed the review pleas filed by the other three convicts – Mukesh (30), Pawan Gupta (23) and Vinay Sharma (24) – in the case, saying no grounds have been made out by them for review of the 2017 verdict. Ram Singh had allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail in New Delhi.
The 23-year-old paramedic student 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 road. She died on December 29, 2012 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.
