The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the review plea of one of the convicts, Akshay Singh, in the 2012 Delhi gang rape case.
Dismissing the petition, the bench, according to Bar & Bench, said, “We do not find any error on the face of the record.”
The 3-judge bench, headed by Justice R Banumathi, said there are no grounds to review the 2017 verdict and the contentions raised by the convict were already considered by the top court in the main judgement.
The bench, also comprising justices Ashok Bhushan and AS Bopanna, said the review petition is not “re-hearing of appeal over and over again” and the top court had already considered the mitigating and aggravating circumstances while upholding the death penalty, according to PTI.
Advocate AP Singh, appearing for the convict, sought three weeks time to file mercy petition before President, but Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the court that one week’s time is prescribed under law for filing mercy petition.
The apex court said the convict can avail the remedy of filing mercy plea within the time prescribed under law, according to PTI.
Opposing the review plea, Mehta, appearing for the Delhi government, told the top court bench that there are certain crimes where “humanity cries” and this is one of them.
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AP Singh had told the court that the age of citizens in Delhi-NCR is reducing due to air and water pollution and there was no need to award death penalty to the convict.
Chief Justice SA Bobde had recused himself on Tuesday from hearing the plea of the convict. After the CJI’s recusal, a bench comprising Justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bhushan and AS Bopanna was constituted by the apex court.
Soon after the top court dismissed Singh’s review petition, a Delhi court directed Tihar jail authorities to seek response from the four death row convicts in the 2012 gang rape case on whether they are filing mercy pleas against their executions with the President.
The court said that it will wait for the apex court order’s copy and adjourned the hearing for January 7, 2020.
On July 9 last year, the apex court had 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.
(With PTI inputs)