The wife of one of the convicts in the Nirbhaya case, Akshay Kumar Singh, has filed for divorce as she doesn’t to be a widow following the hanging of her husband. Akshay Kumar Singh along with other convicts are scheduled to be hanged on the 20th of March at 5.30 am.
In the plea submitted to the Aurangabad court, Punita, Akshay’s wife, expressed her will to not to live a life of a widow and therefore want to get divorced. She also claimed that her husband in innocent and she wants to be legally divorced before he is hanged. Bihar’s Aurangabad court has scheduled the matter for hearing on the 19th of March.
Mukesh Kumar Singh, Punita’s lawyer spoke to the media about the rights Sunita possessed to seek divorce. Sunita can seek divorce under section 13(2) (II) of the Hindu marriage act that grants the right for the woman to seek divorce if her husband is found guilty of rape or sodomy.
Yet another delay?
However, according to some advocates in Patna, this might be yet another tactic by the convict to delay the hanging that has already been postponed twice. The advocates also upheld her right to seek divorce under the legal system.
A set of legal experts feel that there isn’t a chance of any further delay as every formality as per law has been completed thereby exhausting the legal remedies for the convicts.
On 16th December 2012, a young woman was gang-raped by six men inside a bus, tortured her further with an iron rod and was thrown out of the bus along with her friend. Battling for life, she died in the hospital on the 29th of December. Out of the six convicts, one has been dead after he was found hanging in jail, the other was sent to a reform home for being a minor while the other four will be executed.
The four convicts in the Nirbhaya case – Pawan Gupta, Mukesh Singh, Vinay Sharma, and Akshay Kumar Singh are currently in the Tihar Jail. Despite approaching international courts and the Human Rights Commission, the convicts are set to be hanged in Tihar on March 20.
Tihar Jail on Tuesday also conducted a dummy trial of the hanging by hangmen Pawan who hails from Meerut.
