The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to review its
January 21 verdict, commuting the death sentence of 15 convicts to life
term because of inordinate delay on the part of the President in
disposing of their mercy petitions.
A Bench of Chief
Justice P. Sathasivam and Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Shiva Kittu Singh
dismissed the Centre’s petition in the CJI’s chamber, observing it had
no merits.
In its petition, the Home Ministry had
said keeping a death-row convict in suspense even as the President
considered his mercy petition by itself could not be a sufficient ground
for commuting the death sentence.
Citing its January
21 judgment, the court on February 18 commuted the sentence of the
three death row convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. A
petition for a review of this ruling has already been filed.
The
Centre said: “In the present case, the issue raised was commutation of
the death sentence on the ground of delay, which allegedly attracted
Article 21 of the Constitution in favour of the convicts.”
Further,
“the interference of this court with the merits of the order of
rejection issued by the President is without jurisdiction. Once the
President had, in exercise of his power under Article 72, rejected the
mercy petition, this court has only a limited power, under judicial
review, to disturb the order of the President.”
The
Centre said: “If this court was of the opinion that there had not been a
proper consideration of the mercy petition, the same ought to be
remitted back to the President for reconsideration.”
Centre said court had only limited power to disturb the order of the President
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