NEW DELHI: Believe it or not, one of the four men convicted in the 2012 Nirbhaya rape and murder case has asked the Supreme Court to spare him the death penalty since life in Delhi is anyway getting short due to air and water pollution.
The petition has been filed for Akshay Kumar Singh, one of the accused, through his lawyer A P Singh and maintains that he does not deserve death given the environmental conditions in the national capital.
“It is important to note here that air quality of Delhi-NCR and metro city is like a gas chamber. Not only this, the water of Delhi-NCR is also full of poison. This fact is proved by the Government of India report submitted in the Parliament,” the plea reads adding that, “Everyone is aware of what is happening in Delhi-NCR with regard to air and water. Life is going to be short, then why death penalty?”
“It is mentioned in our Ved, Purans, Upanishad that in the age of Satyug, people lived thousands of years. In Treta Yug, a man used to live for thousands of years but now it is Kalyug. In this era, age of a human being is reduced much. It has now come down to 50-60 years,” the petition stated.
The petition also emphasised that very few people reach up to age if 80-90 years. “When a person faces the stark realities of life and passes through the adverse situation, then he is no better than a dead man,” stated Akshay’s plea.
It added, rich are rarely sent to gallows and when the judiciary cannot apply uniform standards, it has no right to give death penalty to anyone. Akshay is the last of the four convicts in the case to move a review petition in the apex court. The top court had in July 2018 junked the review petition of three other convicts — Mukesh, Vinay and Pawan.
The week began with speculation that Tihar jail authorities were making preparing for the execution of the convicts. According to sources, one of the convicts Pawan was shifted from Mandoli to Tihar on Sunday. The other three convicts are already there. Additional Inspector General, Tihar, Raj Kumar said the speculations “could have” erupted after the shifting of the convict.