Constitution Bench will settle remission issue
By referring to a Constitution Bench the Tamil Nadu Government's decision to free the killers of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the Supreme Court has taken a sensible way forward on the issue. The court was faced with the State regime's move after the former had commuted the death sentence of three of the seven convicted killers; the other four were serving life-terms. The matter before the apex court was whether a Government (Union or State) had the powers to remit a sentence after the highest court of the land had already commuted the death penalty to a life-term. It needs recalling that the Tamil Nadu Government had within a day of the Supreme Court commuting the death sentence, announced that the convicts who had been behind bars for decades — including the four who were serving life-terms — would be freed immediately. An alarmed Centre had then approached the Supreme Court and called for the decision to be struck down. While the apex court stayed the release of the former Prime Minister's killers, a three-judge Bench headed by then Chief Justice of India P Sathasivam also considered it prudent to refer the contentious issue of the power of the State (or for that matter the Centre) to remit life-sentence of convicts whose death sentences have already been commuted, to a Constitution Bench. This became necessary because the Supreme Court did not have a body of similar case to use as a precedence in the present instance. Both the Centre, which challenged Tamil Nadu's move, and the State Government, which took the decision, had cited provisions of the law to justify their respective positions. The Centre contended that the State regime's decision was political and violated the law. On the other hand, the J Jayalalithaa Government said the State had powers under Sections of the Criminal Procedure Code to remit the sentence. The State regime claimed that the Centre had no jurisdiction on the matter of remission of sentences in such cases. What all this came to mean is that the power of pardon effectively got exercised twice — once by the Supreme Court, and later by the State Government. It is now for the Constitution Bench to provide clarity on the law on remission.
The debate regarding remissions also opens up another related issue: That of ‘imprisonment for life' without any provision of remission whatsoever, in cases where the death penalty may be considered harsh but the offence is deemed to have been fit for the strictest punishment. There have been instances where murder convicts have received relief although they had been sentenced for life. This new category of offence and punishment is worth considering, and one does hope that the apex court and the executive will plug the loophole that allows for hardened criminals in these cases to get away with undeserved relaxation.