Nirbhaya case: Victim's mother moves SC opposing review plea of convict

The mother of the victim in the 2012 Delhi gang-rape and murder case moved the Supreme Court on Friday (December 13) opposing the plea filed by one of the four death-row convicts seeking review of its 2017 judgement awarding him death penalty.

The counsel appearing for the victim’s mother mentioned the matter before a bench headed by Chief Justice SA Bobde and said they are opposing convict Akshay Kumar Singh’s review plea, which is scheduled to be heard by a three-judge bench on December 17.

“I will keep fighting for justice for my daughter and for the death penalty of those who snatched her from me. I want them to be hanged before December 16,” she told reporters on Friday (December 13).

Also read: Nirbhaya case: Delhi Court adjourns hearing of plea seeking death warrants

Akshay Kumar’s plea, seeking a review of the apex court’s 2017 verdict giving him capital punishment, is scheduled to be heard by a three-judge bench on December 17.

Akshay, lodged in a jail in New Delhi said in his review plea that death penalty entails “cold-blooded killing” and does not provide convicts the chance to reform themselves. The plea referred to the moral reasons for abolition of the death penalty and said there was no evidence to show that such a punishment has got a deterrent value.

The apex court had on July 9 last year 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.

Also Read: Complaint filed against victim’s male friend in Nirbhaya gang rape case

A 23-year-old paramedic student, who came to be known as Nirbhaya, was gang-raped on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a running bus in south Delhi by six persons and severely assaulted before being thrown out on the road. She succumbed to injuries on December 29 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.