Former President Pratibha Patil’s decision to grant clemency to five death-row convicts was on Monday challenged in the Supreme Court, which has decided to examine the matter.
On a PIl filed by a Mumbai-based journalist, Pinki Virani, it was brought to the court’s notice that while commuting death to life, the Presidential power under Article 72 was exercised in a “casual” manner without any regard to the brutality and nature of the crime committed by the five accused.
The petition pointed out “non-application of mind” by the Executive evident from a case decided by Patil in 2012 where death penalty of a man was commuted to life, five years after he had died. Besides violating rights of victims, the petition said, “The grant of pardon on ad hoc basis and without any objectively verifiable parameters constitutes abuse of power.” “We have to examine these aspects,” said the Bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam. The court issued notice to Ministry of Home Affairs for its response.
Virani conducted a detailed study on the five persons and concluded each case to merit death as all cases involved rape and murder of minor girls. In the case of one Molai Ram and Satish, the latter was a convict undergoing imprisonment for rape. Molai was a guard at the same jail. The two had gang-raped the minor daughter of the Assistant Jailor of that jail, killed her and threw the body in a septic tank. More chilling was the account of one Bantu who raped and murdered a five-year old. He had inserted stems of plant and sticks into her private parts due to which she died of excessive bleeding. Sushil Murmu, who too got pardon from President, had chopped off the head of a nine-year old, which was later thrown into a pond.
The petition, argued by senior advocate Shekhar Naphade, questioned the absence of guidelines to regulate grounds for giving pardon. As this issue would require scrutiny of Presidential power, the bench was a little hesitant for the reason that a Constitution Bench had earlier held that Court had power to analyze evidence that went into a decision. However, it had no power to call for reasons from President.