No stay on Bhullar execution

Khalistan Liberation Force terrorist Devinderpal Singh Bhullar failed to get an urgent stay on his execution as the Supreme Court on Tuesday chose not to restrain authorities from executing his death penalty till his review petition was decided.

Khalistan Liberation Force terrorist Devinderpal Singh Bhullar failed to get an urgent stay on his execution as the Supreme Court on Tuesday chose not to restrain authorities from executing his death penalty till his review petition was decided.

Bhullar,whose petition for commutation of death penalty to life term due to delay in deciding mercy petition was dismissed by the court last month,has filed a review petition against this rejection.

Seeking a stay on his execution,senior advocate Ram Jethmalani,who was appointed as an amicus curiae in the matter,expressed apprehension that Bhullar could be hanged in secrecy like Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru even though his review petition remained pending.

We dont want to know it from the newspapers or TV channels in the morning that he has been hanged. It has been happening in this country and last hangings were under such circumstances, Jethmalani argued before a Bench led by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir.

The Bench told him that the same situation prevailed when the matter remained pending before the other court for a decision and that it would not be proper to allow the convict re-agitate the same issues time and again.

Jethmalani,however,pointed that a review had already been filed by Bhullar and it was required in these circumstances to hold back the possible execution. The Bench responded that it would pass formal orders in the matter on a later date.

Bhullars review petition has sought a re-look at the March 13 verdict by a Bench led by Justice G S Singhvi. This Bench had held that in cases where the magnitude of the crime and its impact on society justified imposing capital punishment,a court cannot judicially review a decision by the President or a governor only on the ground of undue delay.

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The review plea stated that this judgment sought to send to gallows a severely mentally ill man and that the harshness of the judgment has shocked the moral conscience of this nation.

Confronting the remarks in the verdict that a person who shows no mercy,is not entitled to plead for mercy,the petition said that it was too harsh a comment in Constitutional terms.

It seeks to legitimise eye for an eye philosophy and negates centuries of evolution need of human kindness and mercy in the matter of governance, it added.

Bhullar,sentenced to death for a bomb blast that claimed nine lives,has been on death row since his clemency petition,which was pending with the president for six years,was finally rejected in 2011.