The Supreme Court (SC) is going to review a curative petition filed by Akshay Singh, one of the convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya rape case, on the 30th of January.
After the Supreme Court dismissed the petition of Mukesh Singh, another convict in the Nirbhaya case, Akshay Singh using his legal rights and filed a petition. Akshay Singh’s petition would be heard by a bench of five judges, headed by N.V. Ramana.
Advocate A.P. Singh is fighting the case on behalf of Akshay Singh and demanding life imprisonment instead of death sentence for his client.
The petition filed by Akshay Singh reads, “The hollow claim that the death penalty creates a special kind of deterrence which is not caused by life imprisonment and that life imprisonment amounts to ‘forgiving’ the criminal is backed by nothing more than a barely masked need to justify vengeance and retribution.”
Meanwhile, Vinay Sharma, another convict in the Nirbhaya rape case, whose curative petition was rejected by the SC long back, filed a mercy plea before Ram Nath Kovind, the President of India.
On the 29th of January, after Akshay Singh filed curative petition, Vinay Sharma also filed a mercy plea. A.P. Singh, who is also representing Vinay Sharma, filed the plea on his behalf and said, “I have filed mercy petition for Vinay before the President. I have submitted it by hand.”
The convicts filing such petitions one by one is said to be their way of postponing their execution. Initially, a Delhi court issued death warrants against all the four convicts and the hanging was scheduled on the 22nd of January. However, due to the mercy plea filed by Mukesh Singh, the death sentence execution date was rescheduled to the 1st of February. With the current developments in the case and the mercy plea filed by Vinay Sharma, it is likely the Delhi Court, bound by legal mandates, will once again have to issue a fresh date for the death sentence.
If President Ram Nath Kovind rejects the mercy plea of Vinay Sharma, Akshay Singh, whose curative petition would be heard in the SC today, has a chance to file a mercy plea before Ram Nath Kovind.
The SC would hear Akshay Singh’s curative petition at 1:00 P.M.
Stay tuned for further updates
