Nirbhaya case: Unfortunate that convict referred to 'pollution' in review plea in such serious case, says SC

The Supreme Court on Wednesday deprecated the arguments advanced by one of the Nirbhaya case convicts who questioned the "futility" of awarding death sentence by saying that life span of people was already decreasing due to pollution in Delhi-NCR.

While rejecting the plea by of Akshay Kumar Singh (33), a bench headed by Justice R Banumathi termed as "unfortunate" the arguments advanced by advocate A P Singh, appearing for the convict, that in 'Kalyug' there was no need of awarding death sentence as a person is "no better than a dead body".

"We find it unfortunate that such grounds have been raised in the matter as serious as the present case," the bench, also comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan and A S Bopanna, said in its verdict on Akshay's plea seeking a review of its 2017 judgement upholding the death penalty awarded to him.

On the convict's contention that several countries have already abolished death penalty, the bench said orally, "So long as death penalty is there in the statute, we cannot do anything. It is for the legislature to look into."
In its 20-page verdict, the bench noted the two grounds raised by Akshay's counsel "(i) futility of awarding death sentence in Kalyug, where a person is no better than a dead body; and (ii) that the level of pollution in Delhi-NCR is so great that life is short anyhow and everyone is aware of what is happening in Delhi-NCR in this regard and while so, there is no reason why death penalty should be awarded."
In its verdict, the court said that grounds raised in the review plea alleging "improper investigation and manipulation of evidence" were "too general and not specific."