New Delhi, 12th April: Punjab militant Devender Pal Singh Bhullar, who was convicted of killing nine people with a car bomb in Delhi in 1993. The Supreme Court on Friday rejected the mercy petition filed by him.
The apex court order was passed by Justice JS Singhvi who said, “Petitioners have failed to make out a case for commutation of death sentence to life imprisonment on grounds of delay, hence Devender Pal Singh Bhullar’s mercy plea stands dismissed.”
Punjab militant Bhullar had filed the mercy petition after he was given the death sentence by the Supreme Court. He had appealed to the President of India for clemency in 2003. However, his appeal, which was pending for eight years, was rejected in 2011.
Bhullat had approached the Supreme Court in 2011, saying that his death sentence should be commuted to life imprisonment because there was an inordinate delay by the President over his plea for clemency.
The apex court’s verdict is crucial as it will impact the cases of other death row prisoners like the three men from Tamil Nadu, who were given the death penalty for their role in the assassination of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
The decision is also crucial since it has now cleared that a delay in deciding the mercy petitions of death row prisoners cannot be a ground for commuting their punishment to life in prison.
They have also pleaded that their death penalty should be commuted because the President took 11 years to reject their appeal. They have already spent 22 years in prison.
Shortly after taking over as President, Pranab Mukherjee turned down the mercy plea of Mumbai terror attack case convict Md Ajmal Kasab, after which, he was executed in a secret operation in Pune.
In February this year, the Parliament attack case convict Afzal Guru was executed after President rejected his appeal to commute his death sentence.
Bureau Report
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