After a marathon hearing stretching several weeks, the Supreme Court on Thursday reserved its verdict on an important question of law: whether a long delay in deciding the mercy petitions of death row convicts by the President and state governors would entitle them to commutation of capital punishment.
While reserving the verdict on two writ petitions filed on the “delay” issue by Punjab militant Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar and Mahindra Nath Das from Assam, a bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and S.J. Mukhopadhaya told the government that it should draw a “timeframe” for a quick decision on the mercy petitions.
The top court said it might take a decision “one way or the other” on the issue of delay but the court’s powers under the Constitution with regard to pending mercy petitions were “very limited” as it was entirely the prerogative of the pardoning authority to take a decision on merits of each case.
The bench also clarified that it would not like the government to take the decision in a “hurry” on any pending mercy petition.
because of the “pressure” from the court as each case has to be decided on its own merit and also taking into consideration various other factors related to the case.
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Bomb hoax on ai flight sends igi into tizzy
AGE CORRESPONDENT
new delhi, April 19
A bomb hoax call to Air India in the early hours of Thursday sent the airline and New Delhi IGI airport into a tizzy and resulted in the delay of a Chicago-bound flight by 11 hours.
The Hyderabad-Delhi-Chicago flight, which took off from Hyderabad, landed at Delhi and was to take off for Chicago at about 2 am on Thursday. But an hour before that, Air India received a call that a bomb had been placed on board the flight. Air India immediately alerted security agencies and full emergency measures were put in place at Delhi airport, sources said.
Air India officials said the passengers who boarded from Hyderabad were asked to move from the aircraft to the Terminal-3 while the aircraft was taken to an isolation bay and searched completely. Sources in the security establishment said the call was declared as a hoax at about 7.50 am. Air India officials said that the passengers from Hyderabad were accommodated for the night at a hotel.
When the bomb call came initially, passengers from Delhi were to board the aircraft but the process was halted.