Dec 16 gangrape: Convict seeks CJI's nod to be present in SC

One of the four death row convicts in the sensational December 16 gangrape and murder case has written to the Chief Justice of India T S Thakur, seeking his permission to remain present in the court room during hearings in the matter, his counsel said today.
Convict Akshay, who is at present lodged in Tihar Jail here, has alleged in the letter also written to President Pranab Mukherjee and apex court judge Justice Dipak Misra, who is heading the bench hearing his appeal, that the sessions court and the high court have not given him a fair chance of being heard.

The letter, copies of which were circulated by his counsel A P Singh to the media, comes nearly three weeks after two other convicts -- Pawan and Vinay -- wrote to the CJI, seeking removal of two senior advocates appointed as amicus curiae in the case.
In his letter, Akshay said he wanted to attend hearings in the matter before the apex court to see how his case is being heard.
He also claimed that since the telecast of the BBC documentary on the gangrape incident, his entire family is being traumatised and his son has stopped going to school to avoid being harassed.

He said the documentary showed only victim's side of the story due to which his family was feeling humiliated and he was apprehending a mishap in the family.

He also claimed that the sessions court and the high court had done injustice to the convicts by denying them copies of the judgements and hearings in Hindi.
The convict sought that he be heard by the apex court properly.
The fourth convict in the case is Mukesh who has also been awarded death sentence by the trial court.
These four convicts had approached the apex court against the Delhi High Court's March 13, 2014 verdict which had observed that their offence fell in the rarest of rare category and had upheld the death sentence awarded to them by the trial court.

A 23-year-old paramedic was brutally assaulted and gangraped by six persons in a moving bus in south Delhi and thrown out of the vehicle with her male friend on the night of December 16, 2012. She had died in a Singapore hospital on December 29.
The prime accused, Ram Singh, was found dead in a cell in Tihar Jail in March 2013 and proceedings against him were abated.
On August 31, 2013, another accused, a juvenile at the time of the crime, was convicted and sentenced to three years in a reformation home. He was released from observation home in December last year.