Nirbhaya Case: CJI Bobde Recuses From Hearing On Personal Grounds, New Bench To Be Constituted

CJI SA Bobde on Tuesday recused himself from convict Akshay Singh's plea seeking review of death penalty in Nirbhaya gang rape-and-murder case saying his family member had appeared for the woman once. CJI said that a new Bench will be constituted at 10.30 am on Wednesday. The Supreme Court was hearing the review petition of the Nirabhaya case convict Akshay Kumar Singh. Singh, one of the four convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case, has moved the top court seeking review of its 2017 judgment handing down death penalty to all of them. The apex court, on July 9, 2018, had dismissed the review pleas filed by three other convicts in the case.

Akshay (31) who had not filed the review plea earlier with other three convicts, has now moved the apex court with the petition, his lawyer AP Singh said. A three-judge bench will hear the plea filed by Singh, whose lawyer has questioned in the review petition the capital punishment at a time life is getting "short" due to rising pollution.

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 people and severely assaulted before being thrown out on the road. She succumbed to injuries on December 29 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.

One of the accused in the case, Ram Singh, had allegedly committed suicide at Tihar Jail in Delhi. A juvenile, who was among the accused, was convicted by a juvenile justice board. He was released from a reformation home after serving a three-year term.