New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday commuted the death sentence of 1993 terror convict Devenderpal Singh Bhullar to life imprisonment on the grounds of inordinate delay in deciding his mercy petition and that he suffered from Schizophrenia.
The apex court bench of Chief Justice P. Sathasivam, Justice R.M. Lodha, Justice H.L. Dattu and Justice S.J. Mukhopadhaya while commuting the death sentence to life imprisonment referred to the apex court’s Jan 21, 2014 verdict, which said that inordinate, unexplained or unreasonable delay in deciding mercy petition was dehumanizing to death row convict and was a ground for commuting death sentence to life imprisonment.
The court also noted the statement of Attorney General G.E.Vahanvati that there was delay in deciding the mercy petition of Bhullar and in view of the Jan 21, 2014, judgment, the April 12, 2013, judgment no longer holds ground. Having admitted to delay, the centre had left the decision to the court. The court also took note of the Feb 5, 2014, report of the Delhi-based Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences which said that Bhullar suffered from Schizophrenia, a mental condition.
By its April 12, 2013, judgment, the court while rejecting Bhullar’s plea held that the delay in the rejection of a mercy petition of a death row convict by the president was not open to judicial review if the conviction was for a crime that involved the loss of a large number of innocent lives.
The court, while upsetting that judgment, had said: “We are of the view that unexplained delay is one of the grounds for commutation of sentence of death into life imprisonment…The only aspect the courts have to satisfy is that the delay must be unreasonable and unexplained or inordinate at the hands of the executive.” (IANS)