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Chief justice recuses from Dec 16 gang rape case
New Delhi
New Delhi
Chief Justice of India (CJI) SA Bobde on Tuesday recused himself from hearing a review petition filed by Akshay Thakur, a convict in the 2012 December 16 gang rape and murder case, after the CJI said that one of his relatives had represented the victim’s family in the past. A new bench will now hear the matter on Wednesday morning.
Shortly after the hearing into Thakur’s review petition began, Chief Justice Bobde mentioned that he had noticed an advocate’s name in the file that led him to wonder if he should be associated with the review petition. The CJI learned that his nephew had appeared in a related case on behalf of the mother of the deceased victim.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta responded that the lawyer had appeared for the victim’s family and not the government. But Chief Justice Bobde decided it was best to opt out of the hearing and announced that he would set up a fresh bench. Justices R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan were the other members on the bench.
After the CJI’s recusal, a bench comprising Justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bhushan and AS Bopanna was constituted on Tuesday evening by the apex court to hear the review plea of the death row convict at 10.30am on Wednesday.
A special bench comprising the CJI and Justices Banumathi and Bhushan commenced hearing on the review plea by Thakur, 33, while asking his lawyer AP Singh to conclude the submission within half-an-hour.
Singh began his submission saying that the case proceeded against the background of political and media pressure and grave injustice was done against the convict.
Pawan Gupta, Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma and Mukesh Singh are on the death row for the heinous gang rape and murder of the 23-year-old woman on a bus that she and a friend boarded in south Delhi’s Munirka.
A fifth adult suspect in the case, Ram Singh, purportedly committed suicide in prison before the trial ended and a sixth was a minor at the time of the crime.
Thakur, the only one of the four convicts who hadn’t filed a review petition earlier, filed the plea against the backdrop of reports that Tihar jail officers were making preparations for the hanging of the four men.
“The state must not simply execute people to prove that it is attacking terror or violence against women. It must persistently work towards systematic reforms to bring about change. Executions only kill the criminal, not the crime...,” said Thakur in the review plea, filed through advocate Singh.
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.
The top court in its 2017 verdict had upheld the capital punishment awarded to them by the Delhi High Court and the trial court in the case.
With inputs from PTI
