SC rejects Nirbhaya accused review plea

The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the review petition of Akshay Thakur, one of the four convicts awaiting death sentence for the gang rape and murder of 23-year old girl 'Nirbhaya' in Delhi in 2012.

After Chief Justice of India S A Bobde recused himself from hearing the matter on Tuesday, the case was heard on Wednesday by a new Bench of Justices Mrs R Banumathi, Ashok Bhushan and S A Bopanna. The CJI was replaced by Justice Bopanna, the other two judges being the same.

Akshay moved the court seeking review of its 2017 verdict which upheld the death penalty awarded to him and three others in the case. He had sought modification and leniency in the sentence. Tihar Jail authorities are preparing to hang all the four convicts, possibly in

December itself.

The court said it has given "due consideration" to the grounds cited by Akshay for review; he has attacked the evidence which has been examined by the trial court, high court and the Supreme Court. "This cannot be allowed," the Bench said, stressing that review is not a revision of the verdict.

The Bench found "no error" on the face of it in the main judgment requiring any review. As soon as the bench pronounced the verdict, Akshay's advocate A P

Singh sought three weeks’ time to file a mercy petition before the President.

Opposing any leniency to Akshay, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta asserted that only one week is prescribed under the law for filing a mercy petition.

The court said: "We are not expressing our view. If as per the law any time is available to the petitioner, it is for him to avail of the remedy within that stipulated time."

The solicitor general said: "There are crimes when humanity is put to shame. There are crimes when God cries that this girl could not be saved, and also that monsters were born. There can be no mercy in such a case."

He said: "The lawyers for the accused are trying to delay the inevitable. They file some petition, then file mercy, then withdraw it. I urge your Lordships to decide this at the earliest."

Akshay's lawyer AP Singh

had pleaded that his client should not be given death penalty. "Death penalty is a primitive method of punishment; execution kills the crime and not the criminal," he argued.

He had also said that Nirbhaya's (not real name) dying declaration did not name any person and her testimonial is not reliable. "The cause of death was septicaemia and drug overdose. Forged reports were prepared. Akshay Kumar Singh was falsely implicated in the case. Everything was fabricated to book him," the lawyer argued.

He claimed to have new facts which prove that Akshay, an innocent and poor man, was convicted under media, public and political pressure.

In a lengthy 20-page ruling, the Supreme Court traced the entire case right from the trial stage and noted that rules allow review in criminal proceedings "only on the ground of error apparent on the face of the record."

It rejected the petition as it did not find any error apparent in the appreciation of evidence or the findings of the Supreme Court judgment.

It cited a number of cases on the scope of the review jurisdiction, noting that "review is not a rehearing of the appeal over again or re-appreciating the evidence and reaching a different conclusion." The court noted that the petitioner also pleaded that the death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights and violates the right to life. These were dismissed as general contentions that cannot be gone into in the review petition.