Nirbhaya case: SC rejects plea to review death penalty
NEWDELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a plea filed by one of the four convicts in the December 16 gang rape case to review its 2017 order that upheld death penalty awarded to him.
The SC’s decision came hours before a Delhi court declined to issue the death warrant to execute the four men who gangraped the 23-year-old paramedic student in December 2012.
The woman was gang-raped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012, inside a moving bus in south Delhi by six people before being thrown out on the road.
She died on December 29, 2012, at the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.
The incident triggered widespread protests across the country and prompted the then government to introduce stricter laws for crimes against women.
With the top court’s verdict on the plea by Akshay Kumar Singh, the review petitions of all the four death row convicts in the case have now been dismissed by the Supreme Court. The convicts are yet to file curative petition in the apex court, which is the last legal recourse available to them and is generally considered in-chamber.
On July 9 last year, 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.
A three-judge SC bench, headed by Justice R Banumathi, on Wednesday said there are no grounds to review the 2017 judgment and that the contentions raised by Akshay were already considered by the top court in the earlier order.
The bench, also comprising justices Ashok Bhushan and AS Bopanna, said the review petition is not “re-hearing of appeal over and over again” and the top court
NEW DELHI: The National Green Tribunal slammed the authorities on Wednesday for failing to stop discharge of untreated sewage in Ganga and directed completion of all projects relating to sewage treatment by June 30 next year.
It said that despite directions, sewage treatment has not commenced for any of the drains except in Uttarakhand.
“There is no information on water quality of river Ganga in the stretch falling in UP, Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal and information of regulation of flood plain zone. The reports from the states other than Uttarakhand do not describe the number of drains and a plan for their interception and diversion to the sewage treatment plants,” the tribunal said.
A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel also directed the National Mission for Clean Ganga, Uttarakhand, UP, Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal to prevent discharge of industrial effluent in Ganga and its tributaries.
It also directed demarcation of flood plains and asked the authorities to stop encroachments.
“Timely completion of all projects relating to sewage treatment be ensured i.e. by June 30, 2020 in respect of ongoing projects and by December 31, 2020 in respect of others failing which compensation has to be paid, apart from action against the erring officers. Till then, to avoid untreated sewage being discharged directly into Ganga, interim remedial measures have to be adopted and for the default after November 1, 2019 compensation has to be deposited.
“CPCB may make necessary calculation within one month from today and raise demands with the chief secretaries of the concerned states which may be complied within one month from the date of such demand failing which accountability will be of the chief secretaries personally,” the bench said.
The NGT directed the UP government to take steps for remediating chromium dump at Rania and Khanchanpur Village near Kanpur and asked Central Pollution Control Boards to finalise and circulate guidelines for biodiversity parks expeditiously.
“Apart from the chief secretaries, the progress may be monitored by the monitoring committee constituted by UP, State of Uttarakhand and in such manner as may be laid down by the chief secretaries in the States of Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal. Let further quarterly progress report be filed by March 31, 2020 by e-mail,” the bench said.
The NGT has earlier rapped the Uttar Pradesh government for failing to check sewage discharge containing toxic chromium into Ganga at Rania and Rakhi Mandi in Kanpur and imposed a penalty of 280 crore on 22 tanneries for causing pollution.
It had also held the UP government liable and slapped a penalty of Rs 10 crore on it.
The green panel had said the problem has not been tackled for the last 43 years and it has resulted in contamination of ground water affecting the health and life of the inhabitants.
The environment compensation of Rs 280.01 crore was assessed by the state pollution control board.
The order came after perusing two reports filed by Justice Arun Tandon, former Judge of the Allahabad High Court, who had been appointed as head of a Committee to oversee the compliance of Ganga cleaning.
Justice Tandon along with the representatives of the National Mission for Clean Ganga, the CPCB, state pollution control board, UP Jal Nigam and the local residents of the area, visited the sites and noticed the status of the Rania and Rakhi Mandi in Kanpur.
Taking strong note of the report, the tribunal said, “The above report is self-speaking and paints a grim picture of failure of the authorities in taking remedial measures, forcing the inhabitants to drink polluted water which is a serious hazard to the health.