New Delhi, India (November 15, 2011): The Supreme Court of India (SCI) on Tuesday, the 15th of November2011, directed the Government of India (GoI) to lay down, before it, details of all constitutional review petitions of death row convicts pending before the President of India.
Court was hearing the petition of Professor Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, a Sikh national facing threat of execution in India.
A Supreme court of India bench comprising G. S. Singhvi, Justice and S. J. Mukhopadhyay, Justice said that they would thoroughly examine pendency of all the 17 review petitions pending for several years before President Pratibha Patil seeking commutation of death sentences into life imprisonment, Sikh Siyasat sources reported from New Delhi, India.
Mr. Ram Jethmalani is counsel for Tamils sentenced to death for assassinating India’s former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. On last hearing of Professor Bhullar case in SCI, Mr. Jethmalani had requested the court to allow him to actively join the proceeding of the case, as the decision of the case will have bearing on all other cases of the similar nature, including that of his Tamil clients.
The court order to expand the scope of the hearing on inordinate delay in deciding on mercy pleas came in the course of a hearing of a petition by Bhullar challenging the rejection of his mercy petition by the president after eight long years.
Bhullar was given capital punishment for a 1993 blast in Delhi which killed nine people in a “split decision” only on the basis of a defected confessional statement extracted in police custody by torture.