Nirbhaya case: CJI Bobde recuses himself from case, convict’s review plea hearing postponed to December 18

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday postponed the hearing of the review petition filed by Akshay Kumar Singh, one of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case and the Chief Justice of India, SA Bodbe, recused himself from the case.

This was after CJI Bobde happened to spot his nephew’s name, advocate Arjun Bobde, in the orders of the review petitions filed by the other three convicts. Arjun Bobde had appeared for the victim’s family along with senior advocate Siddharth Luthra in those proceedings. CJI Bobde said that he will constitute a new bench that will hear the review petition on December 18 (Wednesday) at 10.30 am.  

The bench that heard the petition earlier comprised Chief Justice SA Bobde, Justices R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan.

The case will now be heard on Wednesday (December 18) by a new bench.

The convict Akshay Kumar had moved the apex court as a last-ditch effort to escape the gallows after the Supreme Court put all the four adult convicts in the case on death row in 2017. Kumar was the last to file a review petition on the death penalty after the SC had already rejected the pleas by convicts Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma and Mukesh Singh.

 Advocate AP Singh, appearing for Akshay, started his submission saying that the case in hand has suffered political and media pressure and grave injustice has been done to the convict.

The four convicts are currently lodged in Tihar Jail and the gallows have been strengthened to ensure they are all hanged together for the heinous crime they committed on December 16, 2012.

Nirbhaya’s mother had also approached the Patiala House Court for a hearing of her plea to hang the convicts at the earliest and the court had given her a date of December 18 for the same. This was keeping in mind the Supreme Court hearing today.

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