It's the gallows for Nithari serial killer Surinder Koli and 5 other death row
convicts with President Pranab Mukherjee rejecting their mercy petitions as
advised by the home ministry. The files relating to the 5 mercy pleas, 1 of
which involves 2 sisters, were cleared by the President and returned to the
home ministry last week.
Sources indicated that the home ministry has already written to the states
concerned - Maharashtra (from where 2 petitions relating to 3 convicts were
received), UP, Madhya Pradesh and Assam (1 case each) - to set in motion the
process of execution of the death row convicts.
Apart from Koli, awarded death in the bone-chilling case of abduction, abuse
and murder of several minors in Noida's Nithari village, the others whose
clemency pleas were rejected are Renukabai and Seema, 2 sisters from
Maharashtra convicted of kidnapping and brutally murdering several children;
Rajendra Prahladrao Wasnik of Maharashtra, convicted of raping and murdering a
minor girl; Jagdish of Madhya Pradesh who killed his wife and 5 children; and
Holiram Bordoloi of Assam, who had burnt 2 people and hacked another to death
in public in 1996.
Union home minister Rajnath Singh had recommended to the President on June 18
to reject the mercy petitions in all 5 cases.
Though the 6 death row convicts may still challenge the rejection of their
mercy petition, the gap of 3 years and less between upholding of death sentence
by the apex court and scrapping of clemency plea in three cases may not qualify
for relief.
The Supreme Court had in February this year commuted the death sentences of 15
death row convicts to life imprisonment on grounds of inordinate delay - which
it did not quantify, though in the relevant cases it ranged from 7 to 11 years
- and mental illness.
Incidentally, the government has decided to file a curative petition in the
Supreme Court seeking reconsideration of the February order.
Koli, in any case, may have little room for judicial reprieve on grounds of
delay as his death sentence was confirmed only in 2011. The same fate may await
Wasnik, whose death sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Court in 2012, and
Jagdish, whose capital punishment was upheld in 2009.
As for the other cases, the death penalty for the 2 sisters was confirmed by
the Supreme Court in 2006 and that Holiram Bordoloi in 2005. It will be
interestingly to see whether this is viewed as "inordinate" delay on part of
the Executive in deciding their mercy pleas.
Source: The Times of India, July 19, 2014
