New Delhi: The Supreme Court yesterday dismissed a plea by 1993 Delhi bomb blast convict Devender Pal Singh Bhullar challenging the rejection of his mercy plea by the president, while noting that the home ministry had failed to alert the president’s secretariat of the “dire necessity of deciding the pending mercy petitions”.
Rejecting the plea by Bhullar, his wife and NGO Justice on Trial Trust, an apex court bench of Justice G S Singhvi and Justice S J Mukhopadyay said: “We hold that the petitioners have failed to make out a case for invalidation of the exercise of power by the president under Article 72 of the constitution not to accept the prayer for commutation of the sentence of death into life imprisonment. The writ petitions are accordingly dismissed.”
Bhullar was given capital punishment for the September 10, 1993 blast at the Youth Congress office in Delhi that left nine dead and 17 injured. The attack targeted then Youth Congress chief M S Bitta.
In an apparent censure of the home ministry, the court said: “What was done in April and May, 2011 (rejecting mercy petition) could have been done in 2005 itself and that would have avoided unnecessary controversy.”
Refusing to commute Bhullar’s death sentence into life imprisonment on medical grounds, the judgment said that the documents placed before it “do give an indication that on account of prolonged detention in jail after his conviction and sentence to death, the petitioner has suffered physically and mentally, the same cannot be relied upon for recording a finding that the petitioner’s mental health has deteriorated to such an extent that the sentence awarded to him cannot be executed.”
However, there is uncertainty over when Bhullar would be hanged.
Doctors and jail officials said Bhullar needed more mental health treatment and could not be hanged till he was declared fit.
Tihar Central Jail spokesman Sunil Gupta said: “As per Indian law, a convict cannot be hanged till he is declared mentally and physically fit.”
“When we get Bhullar’s fitness certificate from the asylum, he will be lodged back in Tihar Jail and hanged as per procedure,” he said.
The court noted that 18 mercy petitions filed between 1999 and 2011 had remained pending for one year to 13 years. “It gives an impression that the government and the president’s secretariat have not dealt with these petitions with requisite seriousness. We hope and trust that in future such petitions will be disposed of without unreasonable delay,” the court observed.
It pointed out that because of the delay in deciding Bhullar’s clemency plea, “immense pressure was brought upon the government in the form of representations made by various political and non-political functionaries, organisations and several individuals from other countries.”
Bhullar’s appeal challenging his conviction by the trial court was rejected by the apex court in 2002 and the review petition too was rejected on December 17, 2002.
Bhullar filed a mercy petition on January 14, 2003, which was rejected by the president on May 25, 2011.
IANS
