The Supreme Court will hear a review petition filed by one of the four men convicted in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case at 2 pm Tuesday. A bench of Chief Justice of India SA Bobde and Justices R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan will hear the plea filed by Akshay Kumar.
Akshay, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma, Mukesh Singh, and Ram Singh were convicted of the brutal gang-rape and murder of the 23-year-old physiotherapy student who came to be called Nirbhaya. Ram Singh killed himself in prison while another person -- a minor -- involved in the crime served a three-year term at a reformation center and was released.
The Delhi High Court and later the Supreme Court upheld the convictions in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case and confirmed the death sentences awarded to the convicts. Last year, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma, and Mukesh Singh filed a review petition in the Supreme Court asking it to reconsider its 2017 order that had upheld their convictions.
The Supreme Court refused and the men remained on death row. One of them -- Vinay Sharma -- filed a mercy petition with the President. The central government has recommended to the President that the mercy plea be rejected. (Recently, Vinay Sharma made a U-turn, claiming he never signed a mercy plea in the first place.)
On Tuesday afternoon, the Supreme Court will hear the review petition filed by Akshay Kumar -- the only one of the four Nirbhaya convicts not to have filed such a plea. In the petition, Akshay made some pretty absurd arguments -- the plea cited the Vedas and Puranas and questioned why he was given the death penalty when the air pollution in Delhi is anyway killing people.
Two of the judges who will hear Akshay's plea -- Justices R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan -- were also on the bench that rejected the other three convicts' review pleas and the original bench that in 2017 upheld the convictions in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case.
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HANGING SOON?
Meanwhile, at the Tihar jail where all the four convicts are imprisoned, rumors of the imminent hangings of the four Nirbhaya convicts are getting stronger.
The jail has written to the Uttar Pradesh prison department requesting that it keep its hangmen on standby for a possible hanging(s) at Tihar. Tihar does not have hangmen on its payrolls while the UP jail department employs two. The chief of the Uttar Pradesh jail department has confirmed that Tihar jail sent such a request and has said that the hangmen will be made available to the prison whenever they need.
This along with the report of the Buxar jail in Bihar being asked to prepare hanging ropes, has added to speculation that the four men convicted of gang-raping and murdering Nirbhaya in 2012 could be hanged soon.