Janjivan Bureau / New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed petitions seeking review of its verdict upholding the death penalty given to the four convicts in the December 16, 2012 gang-rape and murder case.
A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, said the petitions didn’t disclose any grounds for invoking its review jurisdiction under Article 137 of the Constitution.
Pronouncing the verdict, Justice Ashok Bhushan said review jurisdiction could be exercised only if there were glaring omissions or patent mistakes leading to miscarriage of justice.
After dismissal of review petitions, the convicts have the option of filing a curative petition — a judicially devised mechanism in 2002 to check any glaring mistakes in a verdict that could result in miscarriage of justice.
Even after rejection of their curative petition, the convicts can’t be directly sent to the gallows as they have the right to file mercy petitions before the President. The President’s decision on a mercy petition can be challenged before the Supreme Court.
The Bench, which also included Justice R Bhanumathi, had reserved its order on the petitions in May after hearing the counsel for three review petitioners and special public prosecutor Siddharth Luthra.
The top court had on May 5, 2017, upheld a Delhi High Court verdict confirming the death penalty awarded by the trial court Mukesh Kumar (29), Pawan Kumar (22), Vinay Sharma (23) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) for raping a 23-year-old para-medical student inside a moving bus in South Delhi on December 16, 2012.
Akshay had not filed a review petition.
The girl was returning home along with her male friend after watching a movie. They had beaten up her friend before taking turns to rape her. She had later died in a hospital in Singapore due to injuries inflicted on her private parts by them.
There were six accused in the case. Bus driver Ram Singh had allegedly committed suicide in Tihar jail while the lone juvenile accused was tried before a juvenile court and sent to a reformatory for three years. He has since been released from the reform home. The rest four were convicted and sentenced to death penalty.
During the hearing, the counsel for one of the convicts had pleaded for mercy and requested the top court to spare them the gallows.
“Death penalty is cold-blooded killing in the name of Justice,” AP Singh, one of the defence counsel, had told the Bench.
Singh, who represented convicts Vinay Kumar and Pawan Kumar, had pleaded that they were young men coming from poor families who should be given a chance to reform. Execution kills criminals and not the crime, he submitted.
They are not habitual offenders and have no past criminal records. The court must allow them to be reformed,” Singh had submitted.
Senior counsel and Special Prosecutor Siddharth Luthra had countered Singh’s arguments, saying it was the rarest of the rare case and the convicts should be sent to the gallows.
As Singh said death penalty had been abolished in many countries. The CJI had replied: “Death penalty exists on the statute book.”
