-The Times of India Rashtrapati Bhawan has defended granting clemency to an unprecedented 35 death row Convicts saying the power to pardon was not a private act of grace but a constitutional obligation.  A statement from the President's office said President Pratibha Patil had not acted in haste or played to the gallery and the clemency petitions had been commuted only after due examination and on the aid and advice of the...

-PTI A sentence lesser than life term cannot be awarded to Convicts for heinous offences like dowry death where the victim is killed in a brutal manner, the Supreme Court has ruled.   Justices Swatanter Kumar and Ranjan Gogoi rejected the plea of a victim's husband and brother-in-law for leniency on the ground that they were young, their mother was of advancing age. "When the offence of Section 304B is proved, the manner in...

-Express News Service Three killers of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi will join families of several Convicts on death row, including Devendra Pal Singh Bhullar, before the Supreme Court for commutation of their death penalty to life imprisonment owing to inordinate delay in mercy process.   Invoking its constitutional powers to transfer any case which raises “substantial questions of general importance”, a Supreme Court Bench led by Justice G S Singhvi on Tuesday...

Relates to February 28, 2002 killing of duo, whose bodies were later thrown into a fire All the surviving 109 accused in the Umta rioting case, in which two persons were killed during the post-Godhra communal riots, have been granted conditional acquittals by the Visnagar court. Mohammad Abdul Sheikh, a retired teacher, and Abdul Mansuri, were killed and later their bodies thrown into a fire during communal violence in Umta village in...

A designated Special Investigation Team (SIT) court on Thursday pronounced the quantum of sentence in the Ode massacre case in which 23 people were found guilty of killing 23 Muslims in the Ode town of central Gujarat during the 2002 riots. Judge Poonam Singh punished 18 persons, guilty of murder, with life imprisonment and five others, guilty of attempt to murder, with seven-year jail term. The charges of conspiracy, rioting, arson,...