SC to hear review petition of Nirbhaya case convict on Dec 17

The Supreme Court will hear on December 17 the review petition filed by Akshay Kumar Singh, one of the convicts in the brutal December 16, 2012, gang-rape and murder case.

A three-judge bench will hear the petition, which was filed by Singh on Tuesday.

The convict, in his review petition, pleaded and requested the Supreme Court to consider his prayer and review its earlier judgement of May 5, 2017, in which the top court sentenced him to the gallows.

"We are requesting the apex court to conduct the review petition hearing in an open court," Dr AP Singh, the lawyer for the convict, had said.

Singh was sentenced to death by a trial court on September 13, 2013, for raping and murdering a 23-year-old woman physiotherapist on December 16, 2012, in the national capital.

His sentence was upheld by the Delhi High Court and finally by the Supreme Court.

The apex court had on May 5, 2017, upheld the death sentence of all the four convicts in the brutal December 16 gang-rape and murder case.

While dismissing the appeal of the four convicts, the apex court had said that the crime fell in the rarest of rare category and had "shaken the conscience of the society.