The Supreme Court today has dismissed the curative petition of Akshay, one of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape case.
The five-judge bench comprising of Justices NV Ramana, Arun Mishra, Rohinton Nariman, R Banumathi, and Ashok Bhushan in the order passed by them after hearing the curative petition of Akshay, stated that the oral hearing, as well as the stay on the execution of death sentence, stands rejected.
“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,” stated Akshay’s petition.
Earlier, a five-Judge Bench of Apex Court has dismissed the curative petitions of the other two convicts, Vinay and Mukesh. Subsequently, Mukesh filed a mercy petition before the President which was also rejected by President Ram Nath Kovind on 17 January.
The first death warrant was issued to the four convicts Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Kumar Singh, and Pawan Gupta wherein they were scheduled to be hanged on 22 January at 7 AM in Tihar Jail, however, after the rejection of Mukesh’s mercy plea on 17 January, a second death warrant was issued according to which the convicts are scheduled to be hanged on 1 February at 6 AM.
Convict Mukesh went on to challenge the rejection of his mercy plea before the apex court, which was also dismissed on 29 January.
Akshay is the third convict in the Nirbhaya case to file a curative petition.
A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court dismissed Akshay’s curative petition in the Nirbhaya gangrape case. The four convicts are scheduled to be hanged on 1 February 2020.#NirbhayaCase #nirbhayaconvicts #SupremeCourt pic.twitter.com/BbCKq5JR8j
— B&B Associates LLP (@bnb_legal) January 30, 2020
