-The Hindu Had the court known that Pratibha Patil was not told of the dissent in the Bhullar case, the outcome of his appeal might have been similar to that of Das's plea The Supreme Court, in the course of just one month, has rendered two judgments that appear to be contradictory. As both the judgments have been rendered by the same Bench, comprising two judges, they need to be studied...
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Mahendra Nath Das’s mercy plea: Why SC commuted his death sentence -Dhananjay Mahapatra
-The Times of India Revealing the casual manner in which Mercy Petitions are dealt with, the Supreme Court found that former President APJ Abdul Kalam's 2005 note favouring commutation of Mahendra Nath Das's death penalty to life term was never placed before his successor Pratibha Patil, who rejected Das's mercy plea in 2011. This and the 12-year delay in deciding Das's mercy plea were cited by a bench of Justices G S...
More »Succumbing to the bogey of fear -Anup Surendranath
-The Hindu In the Bhullar case, the Supreme Court has created a category of ‘terrorists' among those sentenced to death without providing a constitutional basis for it Writing on extra-judicial killings in the Economic and Political Weekly in March 1996, K.G. Kannabiran narrated a very interesting anecdote from his experience on the Civil Rights Committee appointed by Jayaprakash Narayan to investigate fake encounters orchestrated during the Emergency against naxalites. While interacting with...
More »There is case for commuting Bhullar sentence: MB Shah-Darshan Desai and V Venkatesan
-The Hindu Death-row convict, Devender Pal Singh Bhullar, whose writ petition against the rejection of his Mercy Petition on the ground of inordinate and unexplained delay was dismissed by the Supreme Court on April 12, perhaps, has reason for hope with a former Judge of the Supreme Court, Justice M.B. Shah, reiterating his case for commuting his death sentence. Justice Shah was the dissenting Judge who found Bhullar innocent, while two...
More »At the mercy of the Executive-K Venkataramanan
-The Hindu The Supreme Court's reasoning in the Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar case reveals an unfortunate determination to sanction judicial execution because it involved a terrorist offence. If there is one principle that emerges from the judgment of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice S.J. Mukhopadhaya, it is that prolonged delay in disposal of a Mercy Petition, until now considered a possible constitutional limitation on carrying out an execution, will not be...
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