Fifteen death-row convicts, including four associates of forest brigand Veerappan, will now not face the gallows and instead undergo life imprisonment.
This, after the Supreme Court, on Thursday, turned down the curative petition of the Centre — the last legal recourse available under law to upturn an apex court decision — making inordinate delay to dispose mercy petitions a ground to commute death sentence to life.
Finding no ground to unsettle the three-judge Bench’s decision of January 21, 2014, a four-judge Bench presided by Chief Justice JS Khehar, said, “In our considered opinion, no case is made out within the parameters indicated in the decision of this court in the Rupa Ashok Hurra vs. Ashok Hurra case in 2002. The curative petitions are accordingly dismissed.”
The order came as a lease of life to the 15 death-row prisoners who directly benefitted from the decision as their mercy petitions remained pending with the Governor/President under Articles 161/72 respectively for years. These include Veerappan’s four associates — Bilavendran, Simon, Gnanprakasham and Madiah. Their mercy petition has been pending with the State and Central Governments for over nine years.
In the remaining cases too, the court found unexplained delay, some extending to 16 years, which was held by the court to be “inhumane” and a violation of Article 21 (right to life) of the prisoners on death row. One such case is from Uttar Pradesh, where Suresh and Ramji, accused of murdering five members of their family, suffered an incarceration of 16 years on death row, awaiting a decision on their mercy petition.
The other prisoners who found relief from the court on the ground of delay are Praveen Kumar (8.5 years), Jafar Ali (9.2 years), Gurmeet Singh (almost 7 years), Shivu and Jadeswamy (6.5 years), Sonia and Sanjeev Kumar (5.8 years). In two cases involving death row convicts Sunder Singh and Maganlal Barela, though the delay in disposing their mercy petitions is under two years, yet considering their mental illness, the court commuted their death sentence.
The judgment under challenge also laid down guidelines to be followed while dealing with death row convicts by proposing a uniform set of rules to be adopted by each jail to ensure that the procedure under law is executed fairly. These guidelines said that a death row prisoner should not be kept in solitary confinement prior to rejection of his mercy petition and should be provided legal aid and documents necessary to file appeals. The convict or his/her family should also be immediately communicated about the President/Governor rejecting his/her mercy petition and a copy of the same should be supplied to the convict, the convict should be provided 14 days to prepare mentally prior to execution, should undergo mental and physical check-up prior to execution date and meet family members before the designated day of hanging.