The Supreme Court on Tuesday spared 15 death row convicts the gallows in a path-breaking decision which held that anyone facing the gallows, even a terrorist, should not suffer death if there is inordinate or unexplained delay on part of the Centre or the President to decide on the mercy petitions.
The bench, headed by Chief Justice of India P Sathasivam commuted the sentence of 13 condemned prisoners to life on grounds of delay in deciding on their mercy petitions that ranged between six to 12 years. The other two prisoners were considered for a life term on account of their mental illness and schizophrenia on account of prolonged incarceration.
The released prisoners included gang members of slain forest brigand Veerappan, who were convicted under TADA offences. The 154-page judgement pronounced by a three-judge bench could pave the way for the release of Rajiv Gandhi’s killers and other terrorists, including Devender Pal Singh Bhullar as the apex bench overruled its own decision in Bhullar’s case pronounced recently which disentitled terrorists from enjoying the benefit of commutation in cases of inordinate delay to decide on mercy pleas.
It said that to disqualify all TADA cases as a class from relief on account of delay in execution of death sentence was not the correct law. Instead, it held: “The only aspect the courts have to satisfy is that the delay must be unreasonable and unexplained or inordinate at the hands of the executive.”
Going on a case-to-case basis, the court laid down a common principle that said: “We are of the cogent view that undue, inordinate and unreasonable delay in execution of death sentence does certainly contribute to torture which indeed is in violation of Article 21 and thereby entails as the ground for commutation of sentence,” said the bench, also comprising Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Shiva Kirti Singh.
The decision would create a judicial benchmark as the apex court laid down the procedure to be followed by prison authorities and the Government after a mercy petition came to be rejected. Till the rejection of a mercy petition, a prisoner is not to be kept in solitary confinement, is the first of the 12 guidelines framed by the court. The other guidelines included intimation of rejection of mercy plea to the legal aid centre and the family of the convict. The intimation to the family will be in writing and not oral and a 14-day notice must be observed between the date of rejection of mercy petition and execution of sentence.
The court believed this was essential for the prisoner to make peace with God, prepare his Will, settle other earthly affairs, and have a last and final opportunity to meet his/her family. In addition, the court directed Jail Superintendents to conduct regular mental health evaluation of death row convicts, preparation of a health report, furnishing all documents to assist filing of mercy petition, and a mandatory post-mortem report. The last guideline was introduced by the bench to ascertain “whether the person died as a result of dislocation of cervical vertebrae or by strangulation.” By making it obligatory, the court ensured that the prisoner got the least painful death, on which doubts emerged due to the dearth of experienced hangmen in the country.
The decision of the court ended the painful wait of convicts Suresh and Ramji (delay of 12 years), Bilavendran, Simon, Gnanprakasam, Madiah (9 years), Praveen Kumar (9 years and five months), Gurmeet Singh (7 years and 8 months), Sonia and Sanjeev Kumar (6 years and 4 months), Jafar Ali (9 years), Shivu and Jadeswamy (6 years) where the court found that in the decision of the President, the delay was not explained. Two convicts Sundar Singh and Magan lal Barela, were let off on grounds of proved mental illness on account of long incarceration, after their cases were brought to the court by the NGO, Peoples Union for Democratic Rights.