SC dismisses curative petition of Akshay Singh in Nirbhaya case

The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed the curative petition of Akshay Thakur, one of the four Nirbhaya gangrape and murder convicts, who sought commutation of his death sentence to life imprisonment.

A five-judge bench of the apex court, headed by Justice NV Ramana, heard the matter in his chambers.

The curative petition, which was filed by advocate AP Singh on behalf of Akshay, sought the commutation of the sentence of the petitioner "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 plea had said 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 the death sentence.

The top court had dismissed Akshay's review petition in December last year.

Yesterday, the apex court dismissed the plea of another Nirbhaya Mukesh Kumar Singh challenging the rejection of his mercy petition by the President.

Earlier this month, a Delhi court had issued the death warrant for convicts -- Akshay, Mukesh, Pawan Gupta, and Vinay Kumar Sharma -- and ordered their hanging on February 1.

The case pertains to the gang-rape of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, by six people including a juvenile in Delhi. The woman died at a Singapore hospital a few days later.

One of the five adults accused, Ram Singh had allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail during the trial of the case.

( With inputs from ANI )