NEW DELHI: Chief Justice of India SA Bobde recused himself from hearing the review petition filed by Akshay Kumar, one of the convicts in the 2012 rape and murder case.
The Supreme Court adjourned the hearing until tomorrow (Wednesday).
The CJI recused himself after finding out that his nephew had appeared for the victim’s family earlier in the case and it won't be right if he hears the case himself.
The bench said that a new bench will be notified and hearing will take place on Wednesday. But the bench also made it clear that Akshay’s lawyer A P Singh would only get 30 minutes to argue the case.
During the hearing, Nirbhaya’s parents were also present in court. The mother of Nirbhaya has approached the Supreme Court opposing the review petition of Akshay.
Akshay had filed a plea seeking a review of the 2017 verdict of the Supreme Court which upheld the capital punishment given to him and three others by the Delhi High Court and the trial court in the case.
A special fast-track court in Delhi, in September 2013, had ordered capital punishment for the four convicts saying the case fit the rarest of rare category. The sentence was upheld by the Delhi high court in 2014.
On December 16, 2012, a 23-year-old woman (Nirbhaya), was brutally assaulted and raped by six persons in a moving bus in south Delhi, an incident which prompted nationwide protests. She died from her injuries on 29 December at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.
One of the other accused, who was a juvenile at the time of the incident, was sent to a reform centre for three years while another, Ram Singh, was found dead in his cell in Tihar Jail in March 2013.