Death sentence commuted after 19 years: Why ‘illegal solitary confinement’ saved 2 convicts from gallows

Interestingly, the bench started its verdict quoting American journalist and writer Rick Bragg as saying, “Every life deserves a certain amount of dignity, no matter how poor or damaged the shell that carries it.”

The order also quoted Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith as saying, “Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent”.

Case

The two men were arrested for the 2005 kidnapping and murder of a sixteen year old boy from Hoshiarpur. The convicts had demanded a ransom of Rs 50 lakh.

The trial court awarded them the death penalty in 2006 which was later confirmed by the high court.

In 2008, the Supreme Court also upheld the death sentence awarded to the two convicts. The review petitions filed before the Supreme Court were dismissed.

They moved mercy petitions in 2012, however, it was rejected by the governor of Punjab in 2015.

Both the convicts approached the high court after rejection of their mercy petitions for commuting the death sentence to life imprisonment and for quashing the death warrants.

The single judge dismissed their pleas. Subsequently, the convicts filed individual appeals before the division bench.

Findings

The court observed that the convicts were subjected to illegal solitary confinement from 2006 to 2009, prior to the exhaustion of their judicial remedies.

“It stands duly established that the appellants, were illegally kept under solitary confinement for the afore-mentioned period in violation of the directions of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Sunil Batra’s case, before the exhaustion of their judicial remedies,” the court noted.

On the issue of delay, the court found that a total period of more than four years of unexplained and unreasonable delay in processing the mercy petitions was attributable to the State authorities.

It observed that the convicts were neither promptly informed of their right to file mercy petitions nor provided legal aid, contrary to mandatory guidelines.

“We find that after the rejection of the review petitions of the appellants by the Hon’ble Supreme Court on 20.04.2011, they were not informed about the right to file mercy petitions, nor any legal aid was provided, in violation of the guidelines of the Ministry of Home Affairs and the directions in the case of Shatrugan Chauhans’ case (supra), leading to a delay of more than one year and four months in filing of the mercy petitions,” the order read.

The court held that all these supervening factors resulted in infringement of the rights of the convicts under Article 21 of the Constitution.