SC dismisses Nirbhaya convict Akshay Thakur’s curative petition

The Supreme
Court on Thursday afternoon dismissed the curative petition filed by Nirbhaya
case convict Akshay Thakur on Thursday. The hearing was conducted by a bench
comprising six judges. Headed by Justice NV Ramana, the bench heard the
curative petition filed by one of the four convicts.

The curative
petition was Akshay’s last legal resort before the hanging. The four convicts
in the case- Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Kumar Gupta and Mukesh Singh
will be hanged on February 1.

In his
petition, the convict sought commutation of his death sentence to life
imprisonment. The petition was filed by the convict’s counsel AP Singh. Singh
said that the court should provide life imprisonment to the convict.

The petition
read, “The hollow claim that the death penalty creates a special kind of
deterrence which is not caused by life imprisonment and that life imprisonment
amounts to ‘forgiving’ the criminal is backed by nothing more than a barely
masked need to justify vengeance and retribution.”

On
Wednesday, Vinay Sharma filed a mercy plea before the President of India. On
Tuesday, convict Mukesh Singh filed a plea with the Supreme Court, challenging
the rejection of his mercy petition. Mukesh Singh urged the apex court to
review President Ram Nath Kovind’s rejection of his mercy plea.

The four
convicts have used several delay tactics to postpone the date of their
execution. The convicts’ counsel AP Singh had also accused officials of the
Tihar Jail of not issuing the documents required for filing curative and mercy
petitions.