Bang Galore
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2010
- Messages
- 10,685
- Reaction score
- 12
- Country
- Location
India's Supreme Court has rejected a petition by a death row prisoner to commute his sentence to life in jail.
The petition was filed by Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar on the basis that there had been "an inordinate delay" in deciding his mercy plea.
He has been on death row since August 2001 for a 1993 attack in Delhi which killed nine. His plea, filed in 2002, was denied by the president in 2011.
The landmark ruling is likely to have a bearing on several other similar cases.
There are 17 prisoners on death row whose mercy pleas have been rejected.
Three convicts on death row for the assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and four associates of the notorious bandit Veerappan have also approached the Supreme Court to commute their death sentences on similar grounds.
Until recently, executions were rarely carried out in India, but in the last few months, India has carried out two hangings.
Mohammed Ajmal Qasab, the sole surviving attacker from the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was executed in November in a prison in the western city of Pune.
And in February, a Kashmiri man, sentenced to death for the 2001 attack on India's parliament, was hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail.
BBC News - India court rejects plea to commute death penalty
Earlier report:
Bhullar verdict to have maximum impact in Tamil Nadu
CHENNAI: Among all the states in India, Tamil Nadu is most keenly watching the Supreme Court's verdict on Devinderpal Singh Bhullar case. The reason for this is not far to seek.
The apex court ruling will have a direct bearing on seven persons. They are the three Rajiv Gandhi assassination case convicts Murugan, Santhanam and Perarivalan, who are lodged in Vellore central prison in Tamil Nadu and four associates of forest brigand Veerappan: Simon, Gnanaprakash, Madaiah and Bilavendra. They have been convicted for the killing of 22 persons in a landmine blast. They have been lodged in the Hindalga central jail in Belgaum since 2004.
The death row convicts of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case escaped their date with death, after the Madras high court stayed their scheduled hanging on September 9, 2011.
Their mercy pleas had been pending since 1999, after the Supreme Court confirmed their death penalty. If the apex court rules that the delay cannot be a ground to commute death penalty into imprisonment for life, then the seven will be hanged. If the court says that the delay does matter and fixes a time limit to dispose off mercy pleas pending with the President, they get to live a second life.
If the ex court refers the matter to a larger bench saying that the issue needs closer scrutiny, then they will live a borrowed life. Tamil Nadu will see maximum action in the whole country, either way.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...impact-in-Tamil-Nadu/articleshow/19507741.cms
Post Bhullar verdict, all eyes on state governments
CHENNAI: The countdown for a series of hangings; numbering more than a dozen, all across the country, has begun, now that the Supreme Court has rejected Devinderpal Singh's case for commuting death penalty into life imprisonment on the ground of delayed decision on mercy pleas by the President.
The Bhullar case only clarified the grey area in the matter, and the apex court is yet to decide the other pending cases, including that of Rajiv assassins Murugan, Santhanan and Perarivalan.
Most of the cases of pending death penalties are potential political bullets, and the concerned state governments must muster a lot of political will to bite them. Now that questions over the legalities of the presidential decision have been clarified, the order rejecting mercy pleas will be conveyed to the superintendent of the prisons, where the convicts are lodged.
Within seven days of receiving the intimation, the superintendent must fix a date for their execution. The cases of the three Rajiv Gandhi assassins lodged in a Tamil Nadu prison and four forest brigand Veerappan associates lodged in Karnataka, are unique, because of the complexity involved in hanging them together.
Independent India has seen only one incident of more than one person being hanged in connection with a single case. The Billa-Ranga hanging happened more than three decades ago, in 1982.
Whether to queue them up and then hang them one after the other in the same prison or to execute them simultaneously in different jails at an appointed hour, are after all a matter of convenience to be worked out by state government.
Tamil Nadu may not have much trouble with hanging all four in different jails. However, Karnataka has gallows only in Bellary, where all the four Veerappan associates -- Simon, Gnanaprakash, Madaiah and Bilavendra are lodged. That means that they will be either hanged one after the other on same day or different dates, or the state might send them to jails outside the state, to complete the formality. The state might build a new gallows in another jail in the state too.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...on-state-governments/articleshow/19508761.cms
The petition was filed by Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar on the basis that there had been "an inordinate delay" in deciding his mercy plea.
He has been on death row since August 2001 for a 1993 attack in Delhi which killed nine. His plea, filed in 2002, was denied by the president in 2011.
The landmark ruling is likely to have a bearing on several other similar cases.
There are 17 prisoners on death row whose mercy pleas have been rejected.
Three convicts on death row for the assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and four associates of the notorious bandit Veerappan have also approached the Supreme Court to commute their death sentences on similar grounds.
Until recently, executions were rarely carried out in India, but in the last few months, India has carried out two hangings.
Mohammed Ajmal Qasab, the sole surviving attacker from the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was executed in November in a prison in the western city of Pune.
And in February, a Kashmiri man, sentenced to death for the 2001 attack on India's parliament, was hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail.
BBC News - India court rejects plea to commute death penalty
Earlier report:
Bhullar verdict to have maximum impact in Tamil Nadu
CHENNAI: Among all the states in India, Tamil Nadu is most keenly watching the Supreme Court's verdict on Devinderpal Singh Bhullar case. The reason for this is not far to seek.
The apex court ruling will have a direct bearing on seven persons. They are the three Rajiv Gandhi assassination case convicts Murugan, Santhanam and Perarivalan, who are lodged in Vellore central prison in Tamil Nadu and four associates of forest brigand Veerappan: Simon, Gnanaprakash, Madaiah and Bilavendra. They have been convicted for the killing of 22 persons in a landmine blast. They have been lodged in the Hindalga central jail in Belgaum since 2004.
The death row convicts of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case escaped their date with death, after the Madras high court stayed their scheduled hanging on September 9, 2011.
Their mercy pleas had been pending since 1999, after the Supreme Court confirmed their death penalty. If the apex court rules that the delay cannot be a ground to commute death penalty into imprisonment for life, then the seven will be hanged. If the court says that the delay does matter and fixes a time limit to dispose off mercy pleas pending with the President, they get to live a second life.
If the ex court refers the matter to a larger bench saying that the issue needs closer scrutiny, then they will live a borrowed life. Tamil Nadu will see maximum action in the whole country, either way.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...impact-in-Tamil-Nadu/articleshow/19507741.cms
Post Bhullar verdict, all eyes on state governments
CHENNAI: The countdown for a series of hangings; numbering more than a dozen, all across the country, has begun, now that the Supreme Court has rejected Devinderpal Singh's case for commuting death penalty into life imprisonment on the ground of delayed decision on mercy pleas by the President.
The Bhullar case only clarified the grey area in the matter, and the apex court is yet to decide the other pending cases, including that of Rajiv assassins Murugan, Santhanan and Perarivalan.
Most of the cases of pending death penalties are potential political bullets, and the concerned state governments must muster a lot of political will to bite them. Now that questions over the legalities of the presidential decision have been clarified, the order rejecting mercy pleas will be conveyed to the superintendent of the prisons, where the convicts are lodged.
Within seven days of receiving the intimation, the superintendent must fix a date for their execution. The cases of the three Rajiv Gandhi assassins lodged in a Tamil Nadu prison and four forest brigand Veerappan associates lodged in Karnataka, are unique, because of the complexity involved in hanging them together.
Independent India has seen only one incident of more than one person being hanged in connection with a single case. The Billa-Ranga hanging happened more than three decades ago, in 1982.
Whether to queue them up and then hang them one after the other in the same prison or to execute them simultaneously in different jails at an appointed hour, are after all a matter of convenience to be worked out by state government.
Tamil Nadu may not have much trouble with hanging all four in different jails. However, Karnataka has gallows only in Bellary, where all the four Veerappan associates -- Simon, Gnanaprakash, Madaiah and Bilavendra are lodged. That means that they will be either hanged one after the other on same day or different dates, or the state might send them to jails outside the state, to complete the formality. The state might build a new gallows in another jail in the state too.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...on-state-governments/articleshow/19508761.cms
