Deadlines can be fixed for pleas: SC
The Supreme Court bench Justices G.S. Singhvi and S.J. Mukhopadhaya issued the direction while examining the reasons for delay in deciding the clemency petition of Punjab militant Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar. He had applied for mercy in 2005 after the SC had upheld his death sentence in former Youth Congress president M.S. Bitta attack case of 1993.
His case was only processed after the top court’s notice to the government in May 2011 along with 31 other petitions as all these cases were put on fast track for a decision by the President, who commuted the sentence of some.
After examining Bhullar’s file, the bench said “nothing is there in it to show as what was done (by the home ministry) before the court took up the matter.” Apparently the court made it clear that no concrete evidence had emerged from the file to suggest the real cause for not putting up Bhullar’s case before President between 2005 and 2011.
Disapproving the practice of keeping the mercy petitions pending for years, the bench reminded the government that in the case of Kher Singh, convicted with death sentence for murder of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the top court had fixed outer limit of three months for deciding the mercy petitions.
Senior advocate Ram Jethmalani, appointed as amicus curiae in the case, questioned the government’s stand that the court has no power to intervene in the mercy petition issue as it was purely an executive decision and should be left to the “grace” of the President.
Mr Jethmalani said such a proposition of law by the government was entirely “wrong” as the executive could not be allowed to sit over the clemency petitions for any number of years as it involved the fundamental rights as the convicts, who as the citizen of the country were governed by the Constitution. “It is not a grace. It is not a private act of grace conferred on the President but it is a constitutional power conferred on the President under Article 72 to make up for the deficiency of human error in deciding a case by the court,” Mr Jethmalani said.
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