Abolish Death Penalty India: Justice U U Lalit

Showing posts with label Justice U U Lalit. Show all posts

Sunday, December 23, 2018

SC stays death penalty of former BSF constable for six months

Published: February 3, 2017 9:19 PM IST

New Delhi, Feb 3 (PTI) The Supreme Court has stayed the death penalty awarded to former BSF head constable Balbir Singh, who was held guilty of murdering two of his senior officers.

A bench comprising Justices Dipak Misra and U U Lalit granted stay of the execution of the death sentence for six months to enable him to challenge the order of the competent authority and also the court martial proceedings. “We permit the respondent to challenge the said order before the appropriate forum in accordance with the law within three months. Needless to say, the respondent (Balbir Singh) will be at liberty to raise all contentions before the appropriate authority. “The execution of the death sentence shall remain stayed for a period of six months. Needless to say, we have granted six months time so that the respondent can file appropriate proceeding before the competent authority and the said authority can address it in accordance with the law. The competent authority, if so advised, can always extend the order of stay.

“Needless to say, as we have not addressed or adverted to the question of law that has been dwelled upon by the Gauhati High Court, the question of law is kept open,” the bench said. Singh, a former BSF head constable, was awarded death sentence by General Security Force Court on March 2, 2007. He was convicted for murdering his superior Deputy Commandant Kameswar Singh for pulling him up for dereliction of duty while posted at Rajnagar outpost in South Tripura district. After killing Kameswar Singh, the convict had also gunned down Assistant Commandant Alok Ranjan as he had witnessed the killing of the other officer.

On January 15, 2016, the Centre had informed the apex court that as a special case, the government has decided to afford an opportunity of hearing to him and pass an order. The apex court was on April 25, 2016, informed by the Centre that Singh has been accorded hearing by the competent authority and an order will be passed accordingly. The Gauhati High Court, treating his letter as a writ petition, had directed the Centre that before execution of the death sentence, he should be given a hearing.

Source: https://www.india.com/news/agencies/sc-stays-death-penalty-of-former-bsf-constable-for-six-months-2-1809532/ (Accessed 23 December 2018)

Thursday, December 20, 2018

SC sets free death row convict

PTI September 23, 2016

New Delhi, Sep 23 (PTI) A death row convict was today set free by the Supreme Court saying the prosecution has not proved the charge against him of murdering his wife and five daughters on the basis of evidence on record.

Justices Ranjan Gogoi and U U Lalit acquitted the man, even as Justice P C Pant, who was also part of the bench, dissented with their view and upheld the conviction. Justice Pant, however, commuted to life imprisonment, the death penalty awarded to the Chhattisgarh native, saying the trial court and the High Court were influenced by the brutality and the manner in which the crime was committed. The 2:1 verdict came on the mans appeal against his conviction and sentence. According to the prosecution, Chhattisgarh-native Dhal Singh Dewangan, killed his wife and five daughters on February 19, 2012.

In the majority verdict, delivered by Justice U U Lalit, the apex court held that the appellant deserved to be acquitted as the prosecution had not proved its case. "We allow these appeals, set aside the judgments of conviction and sentence recorded by the Courts below against the appellant and acquit him of all the charges levelled against him. The appellant be set at liberty immediately unless his custody is required in any other case," the majority bench said. The majority bench held that the circumstantial evidence, based on which the trial court had convicted the man, "did not form a complete chain of evidence."

"In our view, the circumstances mentioned do not form a complete chain of evidence as not to leave any reasonable ground for the conclusion consistent with the innocence of the appellant, nor do the circumstances exclude every possible hypothesis except the guilt of the accused," they said. Justice Pant, in his minority view, said "the State has failed to show that the appellant is a continuing threat to the society or that he is beyond reformation and rehabilitation. Both the courts below, in my opinion, appear to have been influenced by the brutality and the manner in which the crime is committed."

"But this Court cannot ignore the fact that there are no criminal antecedents of the appellant. Also, it cannot be said that he is continuing threat to the society or that he cannot be reformed or rehabilitated," he said. Justice Pant also observed that the convict belonged to a "socially and economically disadvantaged strata of the society" and considering the facts, it found that life imprisonment would meet the ends of justice.

Source: https://www.indiatoday.in/pti-feed/story/sc-sets-free-death-row-convict-692399-2016-09-23 (Accessed 20 December 2018)

Death row convict: SC seeks Centre’s response on Chandigarh plea

By PTI |New Delhi |Published: September 2, 2016 7:28:13 pm

It has said that just because there was a delay in deciding on his mercy petition, it cannot be a ground for the matter to fall in the jurisdiction of Delhi High Court.

The Supreme Court on September 2 sought response from the Centre on a plea of Chhattisgarh government challenging the jurisdiction of Delhi High Court to grant stay on the execution of a man held guilty for the murder of five persons, including two children, in 2004. A bench of Justices Dipak Misra and U U Lalit also stayed the proceedings in the case pending before the Delhi High Court and posted the matter for further hearing on October 5.

Sonu Sardar

The state government has challenged the Delhi High Court order saying it had no jurisdiction to stay the execution as the offence had taken place in Chhattisgarh and even the apex court had upheld the death sentence of convict Sonu Sardar. It has said that just because there was a delay in deciding on his mercy petition, it cannot be a ground for the matter to fall in the jurisdiction of Delhi High Court. The state government has sought transfer of the matter from the Delhi High Court to Chhattisgarh High Court. The Delhi High Court has on March 2, 2015, stayed the execution of Sardar convicted for the murder of five persons, including two children, in Chhattisgarh in 2004.

The convict’s “black warrant” (death warrant) was scheduled to be signed on March 4, 2015. Sardar in his plea before the Delhi High Court had contended that there was delay of two years and two months by the President in deciding on his mercy plea. Sonu Sardar, along with his brother and accomplices, had killed five persons of a family, including a woman and two children, during a dacoity bid in Chhattisgarh’s Cher village in November 2004. The trial court had slapped death penalty on him and the Chhattisgarh High Court had upheld it.

The Supreme Court in February 2012 had concurred with the findings of two courts and affirmed the punishment. In February 2015, the apex court also rejected his review plea. Sardar, in his petition, has also sought commuting of his death sentence to life imprisonment on account of delay in deciding his mercy plea as well as for allegedly keeping him in “solitary confinement illegally”.

Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/death-row-convict-sc-seeks-centres-response-on-chandigarh-plea-3010426/ (Accessed 20 December 2018)

Thursday, May 28, 2015

SC stays execution of death sentence of couple who killed 7

Last Updated: Monday, May 25, 2015 - 12:26

New Delhi: Supreme Court today stayed the execution of death sentence of a young woman and her lover convicted for killing seven members of her family, including a 10-month-old baby, in Uttar Pradesh in 2008.

A bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and U U Lalit issued notice to UP government seeking its response and posted the matter for further hearing on May 27. The warrant for execution of the death sentence of Shabnam and her lover Saleem was issued on May 21. The Supreme Court on May 1 had upheld the conviction and death penalty of the couple and later on May 15 delivered a detailed judgement for dismissing the appeal filed by the convicts.

Senior advocate Anand Grover, appearing for Shabnam, asked the court that the matter be heard before any final decision is taken for executing the death penalty. In 2013, Allahabad High Court had upheld the death sentence to the couple awarded by a sessions court in 2010. Saleem and Shabnam were having an affair and wanted to get married but their relationship met with stiff opposition from the woman's family.

On April 15, 2008, Shabnam's entire family, including a 10-month-old baby, was murdered and the woman initially pretended that her house in Amroha district of UP was attacked by unidentified assailants. It came to light during investigation that she had abetted Saleem in the crime as she made her family members drink milk laced with sedatives before the attack and thereafter herself throttled her infant nephew.

Source: http://zeenews.india.com/news/india/sc-stays-execution-of-death-sentence-of-couple-who-killed-7_1601109.html [last accessed 28.05.2015]

Convicts can't be hanged secretly and hurriedly: Supreme Court

Amit Anand Choudhary,TNN | May 28, 2015, 02.24 AM IST

NEW DELHI: Condemned prisoners also have a right to dignity, the Supreme Court has said holding that execution of death sentence cannot be carried out in an arbitrary, hurried and secret manner without allowing death row convicts to exhaust all legal remedies and meet family members.

"Right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution does not end with the confirmation of the death sentence. Even in cases of death row convicts, their right to dignity must be protected," said a bench of justices A K Sikri and U U Lalit while quashing the execution warrants of a young woman and her lover, convicted for killing seven members of her family including a 10-month-old baby in Uttar Pradesh in 2008.

The court's observations assume significance in the context of the hue and cry raised by human rights activists after Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru was hanged in the capital's Tihar jail in 2013 even before his family members could get the intimation.

In case of the couple — Shabnam and Saleem — the bench said, "We find that death warrant was signed by the sessions judge in haste without waiting for convict to exhaust all legal remedies." It pointed out that the condemned prisoners can file review petition before the Supreme Court and can also seek mercy from the the President or Governor for commuting their sentence.

Referring to the Allahabad HC order on procedure to be followed for execution of death sentence, the bench said the principles of natural justice must be followed and sufficient notice given to the convict before the issuance of death warrant to enable him/her to pursue legal recourse and have a final meeting with family members before execution. In cases where a convict is not in a position to get legal assistance, legal aid must be provided, it said.

The bench expressed surprised on the "unwarranted" haste with which the Amroha court issued execution warrants, just six days after the Supreme Court awarded death sentence to the couple on May 15 for wiping out the woman's entire family— parents, two brothers, sister-in-law and two minors - to remove opposition to their affair and also grab family property.

Appearing for the death row convicts, senior advocates Anand Grover and Raju Ramachandaran contended that guidelines laid down by SC and Allahabad HC were given a go-by the sessions court and pleaded for quashing of the warrant.

The apex court said the sessions court issued the warrant without waiting for the mandatory 30 days to allow death row convicts to avail judicial remedy of filing petitions for a review.

Among the mandatory guidelines are that the death-row convicts have the right to meet their family members. The guidelines are intended to make the execution least painful.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Convicts-cant-be-hanged-secretly-and-hurriedly-Supreme-Court/articleshow/47450451.cms [last accessed 28.05.2015]

Friday, February 6, 2015

SC gives first open court hearing on review plea of death row convict

Last Updated: Tuesday, September 23, 2014 - 20:08 PTI

New Delhi: A death row convict from Chhattisgarh on Tuesday became the first person to get the benefit of the Supreme Court's recent ruling that condemned prisoners must be given an open court hearing on the petition seeking review of the capital punishment. Sonu Sardar, whose mercy petition was rejected by the President, was given an open hearing in accordance with the September 2 verdict of the five-judge Constitution Bench which had held that a limited oral hearing even at the review stage is mandated by Article 21 in all death sentence cases.

A three-judge bench headed by Justice A R Dave said "the review petition will be considered only to the extent of the sentence part". "We are not in appeal. How do we sit on appeal. It has to be confined to sentence," the bench, also comprising Justices J Chelameswar and U U Lalit said while disagreeing with Sardar's counsel and senior advocate Raju Ramachandran, who was urging for re-examination of the findings on conviction. The bench issued notice while seeking response from the Chhattisgarh Government and posted the matter for hearing on November 12. The state government's standing counsel Atul Jha also raised objection to the submission of Sardar's counsel that the conviction should be relooked. Ramachandran's submission that proper legal assistance was not provided to the apex court during the hearing of the appeal as advocate was from the Supreme Court Legal Aid did not go well with the bench.

The bench said it was not correct to make submission like this as it would be like blaming the apex court. "I am sorry to say this and I am anguished to say this. Don't blame Supreme Court if legal assistance was not rendered properly. I request senior advocates to sit and examine how matters are argued. It is not for us judges but for institution," Justice Chelameswar said. While disagreeing with Ramachandran that the entire matter has to be looked into, the bench said "we have seen the entire thing and we have seen that conviction part has been well considered in the judgement". Sardar, who was few months above the age of minority, was convicted and sentenced to death for killing five family members including two minors of a scrap dealer in Raipur on November 26, 2004 by the trial court on February 27, 2008. The Chhattisgarh High Court and the Supreme Court had confirmed it on March 8, 2010 and February 23, 2012 respectively. The Supreme Court had thereafter on June 19 stayed execution of his death sentence. The President had rejected his mercy plea on April 21 this year.

Source: http://zeenews.india.com/news/india/sc-gives-first-open-court-hearing-on-review-plea-of-death-row-convict_1474711.html [last accessed 06.02.2015]

The Death Penalty Scenario in India

India is one of the 193 countries that retains death penalty. There has always been a few imminent judges who have pronounced compelling verdicts upholding the rights of prisoners on death row. There has been increasing debate in various platforms advocating abolition of death penalty or at least to rethink sentencing policies in India. The Indian government has however always been committed to the retention of the death penalty, irrespective of their political ideology. India has voted against a United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) draft resolution on the use of death penalty, saying it goes against the statutory law of the country where an execution is carried out in the "rarest of rare" cases. India retains the death penalty as punishment for a number of crimes including murder, kidnapping, terrorism, desertion, inducement to suicide of a minor or a mentally-retarded person and has more recently in 2013 come to include the offence of rape in certain circumstances. Most recently, there is an outrage over child rape and murder.

After observing an unofficial moratorium of 8 years in India, the Indian Government in November 2012 carried out the execution of Ajmal Kasab, convicted in the Mumbai attacks case, without public knowledge. This was followed by the secret execution of Afzal Guru, convicted in the Parliament attack case of 2001, in February 2013, under similar circumstances, without intimating his immediate family or affording a chance of judicial review. In both cases, the executions were carried out under covert operations conducted by the Government immediately upon rejection of their mercy petitions. Before these executions, the last execution to be carried out in India was that of Dhananjoy Chatterjee in 2004 who was convicted of rape and murder and which sentence was carried out after he had spent 13 years in solitary confinement. Following this, several mercy petitions of death row convicts have come to be rejected. The fear of execution of such convicts is imminent. Bolstered by the Government's unapologetic conduct and public outcry, especially in recent cases of rape and murder reported in the country, the courts are continuing to hand down death sentences at an alarming rate.

In the recent past, there have been a few empirical studies (mainly four) conducted with prisoners on death row. This has highlighted the situation of prisoners on death row.

(1) Most recently the India Exclusion Report 2017-18 found that fair trial rights and guarantees are reduced to a nullity and seeks to breach the citadel of the collective silence. It further said that Convicts on death row in India belong to groups marginalised along the axes of caste, religion, economic vulnerability and educational deprivation, and their fair trial rights, though a part of the Right to Life guaranteed by the Constitution, are invariably non-existent, a survey of 371 out of the 385 persons living under the death sentence and their families has revealed.

(2) Another study was The Death Penalty Research Project (2015) which was conceived with an aim to document the socio-economic profile of prisoners sentenced to death in India and map their experience within the criminal justice system.

There were two other academic studies that were done conducted by Dr. Reena Mary George –

(3)“Voices of prisoners surviving the death row in India” (2014) done through the University of Vienna under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Christoph Reinprecht (Sociology) and Prof. Dr. Manfred Nowak (Law and Ex-United Nations Rapporteur on Torture). George’s research highlights three salient features, namely: poverty, social exclusion and marginalisation are antecedent to death penalty; death penalty is a constructed account by the state machinery; and prisoners on death row situate dignity higher in the juxtaposition of death and dignity.

(4) Another one “Death Penalty – A Human Rights Perspective” (2009) done through the University of Mumbai under the guidance of Retired Justice Hosbet Suresh. This was a study in Maharashtra with the objectives to firstly study the impact of death penalty on the social, mental, and physical being of the inmate and secondly, to study the perception of opinion leaders on death penalty with reference to human rights. All the above reports are public documents.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, Prison Statistics 2015, there are 101 prisoners sentenced to death. The actual figure of sentences originally awarded is much higher considering the death sentences of 49 convicts came to be commuted to life imprisonment in the said period. As of today, almost in 2019, the figures are unknown through government statistics, however, research centres claim this figure to be around 371 convicts. During the 1980s the Supreme Court sought to restrict the use of the death penalty by characterizing it as a punishment reserved only for the “rarest of the rare” cases. The doctrine has not had the desired effect. According to a former chief justice of the Delhi High Court, Rajindar Sachar: “after the rarest of rare doctrine was introduced in 1980, the Supreme Court confirmed death penalty in 40 per cent of cases in the period 1980-90 while it was 37.7 per cent between 1970 and 1980. For the high courts it rose from 59 per cent in 1970-80 to 65 per cent during 1980-90”. Over the past two decades the death penalty has been extended to include more crimes and been handed down with increasing frequency.

Most recently while commuting a sentence in Supreme Court (2018), Justice Joseph did not seek the reconsideration of the Bachan Singh judgment, but only sought to re-examine the purpose and practice of the death penalty, and whether as a punishment, it serves any goal at all. In other words, the death penalty can continue to remain constitutionally valid because of the Bachan Singh judgment, but its application in substantive cases coming before the court must be restricted to only those cases which meet the criteria laid down in that case.

While updating the blog and conducting my own empirical studies, I observed the heinous nature of the crimes that were committed and thought about the families, about their loss, about the victims who for no fault of their own died. If I lost my relative or a dear friend, would I still oppose death penalty and would I still advocate to abolish the death sentence? Having worked in the criminal justice system and also having the seen the other side, where often it is the marginalized, vulnerable and oppressed who are on death row makes me want to advocate for abolition of this punishment. Victims should definitely get justice for their loss, for their pain. No one should escape the rule of law. As long as humanity exists; crime will exist. Should we not re-consider our sentencing policies?

Reena Mary George