Revision as of 10:06, 11 July 2013

Reviewing the President’s decision

Govt: SC can’t review President’s mercy plea calls

Dhananjay Mahapatra TNN

The Times of India 2013/07/07

New Delhi: The Centre is all set to legally lock horns with the Supreme Court by questioning the court’s powers to call for judicial scrutiny of the President’s exercise of constitutional power to grant pardon or commute sentences of condemned prisoners.

“The decision of the President under Article 72 of the Constitution, either accepting or rejecting a petition, is a sovereign act. This sovereign act is performed after the courts have given their verdict and this sovereign act cannot be subjected to review by the Courts,” the Centre said.

The government said this in its petition seeking review of the SC’s May 1 judgment, commuting the death sentence of double murder convict M N Das to life.

MERCY PETITION ‘Presidential delay no case for plea review’

New Delhi: Delay by the President in consideration of a mercy plea cannot be ground for the Supreme Court to reopen cases of death penalty, the government has said in a review petition in the apex court.

“Once the mercy petition has been decided by the highest constitutional authority, the President of India, the courts should not allow reopening of the case, as the case has achieved its finality. Otherwise, reopening of the cases would be unending and it may never attain finality,” the Centre said in its petition seeking review of the SC’s May 1 judgment commuting the death sentence of double murder convict M N Das to life. The court had done so on the ground that there was inordinate and inexplicable delay on President’s part to reject his mercy plea.

“Entertaining of an appeal after the President has rejected the mercy petition also amounts to reopening the case,” the government said. While saying it had fully explained the decade-long movement of Das’s mercy plea file both in the ministry of home affairs and the President’s Secretariat, the Centre, for the first time, questioned the apex court’s jurisdiction to reopen cases of death penalty after rejection of mercy pleas by President.

The petition was also aimed at curbing the increasing trend among condemned prisoners to move high courts the apex court after rejection of their mercy pleas by Governor or President.

In 2013 the SC had rejected Delhi blast convict Devenderpal Singh Bhullar’s plea for commutation of death penalty to life sentence. However, it accepted Das’s plea on the ground that there was an 11-year delay in deciding his mercy plea by the President.

The Centre did not forget to rub in the delay on the judiciary’s part either in deciding murder cases, from trial stages and appeals through the HC up to the SC. Why it is that adverse view was taken of the delay by the executive in deciding the mercy plea and not that of the judiciary, it asked.

“No distinction can be drawn between the delay during the trial and the delay in considering the mercy petition by President. It cannot be said that delay during the trial is justified and the delay by President in consideration of the mercy petition is not justified,” the Centre said.

It said as soon as the SC rejects an appeal against death sentence, the prisoner goes into mental agony recognizing that he had inched closer to the hangman’s noose. But since the execution is stayed during the pendency of mercy pleas, delay in deciding such mercy petitions actually keeps alive the ray of hope for life in the condemned prisoner. So, delay in deciding mercy pleas does not cause any additional mental agony for the condemned prisoner, the Centre reasoned.