If Rajiv Gandhi's killers escape gallows, so may 21 others on death row

President Patil

NEW DELHI: If 'delay' in disposing a mercy petition is taken as the ground to commute the death penalty of those convicted of heinous crimes, it will have a bearing on the fate of 21 people on death row, whose pleas have been pending for over five to 10 years.

Asking for the Centre's reply, the Madras high court on Tuesday observed that there had been a delay of over 11 years in the disposal of the petitions filed by the three convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. The court also stayed for eight weeks the execution of the three convicts fixed for September 9. Besides, the Tamil Nadu assembly passed a resolution urging the President to reconsider the mercy plea of the convicts, prompting J&K CM Omar Abdullah to tweet about Parliament House attack convict Afzal Guru.

The argument of 'delay', if accepted, can also be taken as a ground to pitch for the case of terrorist Devender Pal Singh Bhullar. The development has already witnessed ruling Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab writing to the Centre for commuting the death sentence of the Khalistani terrorist.

While the President had rejected Bhullar's mercy plea, the final nod on Afzal Guru is awaited after the home ministry forwarded its opinion rejecting his plea.

However, all the mercy pleas have not ended in 'rejection'. Since November 2009, the President has commuted the death sentence of 22 convicts, but none of them was guilty of any terrorrelated crime. Madras HC's observation now opens a debate, taking a cue from what the Supreme Court had held in similar cases.

In 1999, the SC had held in the Triveniben vs State of Gujarat case that "undue delay" in execution of a death sentence entitled the condemned prisoner under Article 32 of Constitution to approach the court that his death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment.

The SC, however, did not quantify the period of "inordinate delay", leaving scope for interpretation, especially when the clemency powers of the President, under Article 72 of the Constitution, do not prescribe any time frame for disposal of mercy petitions.

A senior official said: "The Constitution does not provide any time limit for the President to decide any clemency petition. So, the argument of the delay does not hold any ground."

Source: The Economic Times, September 1, 2011

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