HC commutes death penalty of 2 to 30-year jail term

Express news service : Wed May 08 2013, 02:39 hrs
BOMBAY High Court Tuesday set aside death penalty of two persons who kidnapped and murdered a four-year-old boy in Navi Mumbai in 2004. The court sentenced both convicts to 30 years’ imprisonment.
A division bench of Justices V M Kanade and P D Kode held that the case could not be included in the “rarest of rare” category as laid down by Supreme Court. The death sentence was awarded by a sessions court in March last year.
The accused — Nihal Ahmed Shaikh and Rafiq Mohammed Sayyed — are said to have kidnapped the boy, Nitesh Wadhwa- on April 24, 2004, from his residence in Vashi. A month later, police found Nitesh’s body of Nitesh after the accused were arrested. The accused had demanded a ransom of Rs 5.5 lakh from the boy’s father, Prakash Wadhwa.
“We are of the considered opinion that in the facts and circumstances of the instant case, it cannot be said to be of a rarest of rare nature warranting the extreme penalty of death,” the order said. The judges observed that the medical evidence did not indicate that the murder was committed in an unusually cruel manner.
They also observed that the accused did not have any criminal antecedents, and also that they come from the poor strata of society.
Both the accused lived in a room in Turbhe and are originally from Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh. They are currently lodged at Yerawada central prison in Pune. The judges took into account their young age — they were 25 and 22 years old respectively at the time of the offence.

 Source : http://m.indianexpress.com/news/hc-commutes-death-penalty-of-2-to-30year-jail-term/1112870/

Devenderpal Singh Bhullar's wife moves SC for suspending his execution

PTI | May 7, 2013, 01.56PM IST
NEW DELHI: 1993 Delhi blast convict Devinderpal Singh Bhullar's wife on Tuesday approached the Supreme Court seeking stay on execution of his death sentence till her review plea against its verdict is decided.

She submitted in her plea that she has filed a review petition against the Supreme Court verdict of April 12 in which the court had rejected her petition to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment on ground of delay on the part of the government in deciding his mercy plea.

Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) terrorist Bhullar was convicted and awarded death penalty for triggering a bomb blast here in September 1993, killing nine people and injuring 25 others, including then Youth Congress president M S Bitta.

The apex court had on March 26, 2002 dismissed Bhullar's appeal against the death sentence awarded by a trial court in August 2001 and endorsed by the Delhi high court in 2002.

He had filed a review petition which was also dismissed on December 17, 2002. Bhullar had then moved a curative petition which too had been rejected by the apex court on March 12, 2003.

Bhullar, meanwhile, had filed a mercy petition before the President on January 14, 2003. The President, after a lapse of over eight years, dismissed his mercy plea on May 25, 2011.

Citing his delay, he had again moved the apex court for commutation of the death sentence but his plea was rejected.

The apex court had on May one commuted the death sentence awarded to murder convict M N Das, whose mercy petition was rejected by then President Pratibha Patil.

The court had allowed the plea of Das who had approached it for commutation of his death sentence on the ground that the President had taken twelve years to decide his mercy plea.

Source : http://m.timesofindia.com/india/Devenderpal-Singh-Bhullars-wife-moves-SC-for-suspending-his-execution/articleshow/19928452.cms

Supreme Court commutes death sentence

Published: 1:58 pm, May 1, 2013 Story By: mattersindia.com

New Delhi: The Supreme Court said that the President’s office took too long to reject the clemency  petition of a prisoner on death row and hence  commuted the death sentence of a murderer to life imprisonment. In 1999 MN Das was convicted by the Supreme Court and sentenced to death. His mercy petition was rejected by President Prtibha Patil, 11 years after he filed it. Das had killed a man in Assam in 1990 then six years later while on bail murdered another. His lawyer has cited the delay in asking for the death sentence to be commuted, ndtv.com reports. Other lawyers of death row prisoners also maintain that the “delay is worse than death.”

The latest development comes contrary to the April 11 ruling when the Supreme Court turned down that same argument in the case of Punjab militant  Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, prime accused  in a 1993 bomb blast in Delhi that killed nine people. Bhullar, a member of a separatist group, argued his death sentence should be commuted to life in prison due to the torment he’d suffered awaiting execution. Bhullar’s appeal was turned down by the President after eight years. In his case the Supreme Court had said that terrorists cannot seek mercy by citing inordinate delays in their appeals.

The latest verdict might have a bearing on the cases of more than 15 prisoners on death row. They include three men for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and four members of the gang led by sandalwood smuggler Veerappan. India was among four countries in the last year that resumed using the death penalty.

Since Pranab Mukherjee was appointed president in July he has rejected mercy petitions of at least seven people, leaving them at risk of execution, Amnesty International said. Two people have been hanged — Mumbai attack gunman Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, and Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri found guilty of participating in a strike on India’s parliament in 2001. Kasab’s was the country’s first execution since 2004.

Source: http://mattersindia.com/supreme-court-commutes-death-sentence/ [accessed 05th May 2013]

Man gets death penalty for killing three siblings

PTI | May 5, 2013, 02.14 PM IST

BILASPUR: A man has been sentenced to death by a local court here for abducting and killing three minor siblings in February 2011 in Ratnapur town of the district.

First additional district and sessions judge Neeta Yadav yesterday sentenced - Manoj Suryawanshi - to death for abducting and killing the children from his neighbourhood.

According to police, Suryawanshi had kidnapped his neighbour Shivlal Dhivar's children - Vijay (8), Ajay (6) and Sakshi (4)- on February 11, when they were returning from school.

The accused took them to a nearby field where he killed them by hitting them with stones.

He was arrested the next day. According to prosecution, the accused committed the crime to take revenge against Shivlal's brother Shivnath. Suryawanshi believed that his wife had eloped with Shivnath.  

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/raipur/Man-gets-death-penalty-for-killing-three-siblings/articleshow/19894498.cms [accessed on 5th May 2013]

SC commutes death sentence of M N Das , a condemned prisoner from Assam

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday commuted death sentence of M N Das, a condemned prisoner from Assam, to life sentence. M N Das had been on death row for last 16 years. The apex court took into account the long delay in deciding the mercy plea as a ground for commuting Das's death sentence.

Recently, the SC had rejected a similar plea from Devinder Singh Bhullar, who was awarded death penalty for 1993 bomb blast in Delhi that killed 9. Das, while out on bail in another case, had beheaded one Harakanta Das at Fancy Bazaar in Assam and surrendered with the victim's head on April 24, 1996 and in 1997, the sessions court there had sentenced him to death.

His conviction and sentence was subsequently upheld by the Gauhati high court in 1998 and the Supreme Court in 1999. He had moved in 1999 a mercy plea, which remained pending for eleven years before the President and was rejected in 2011. Das had then filed a writ petition in the apex court pleading for commuting the death sentence to life imprisonment since he had already spent about 14 years in jail during the disposal of his petition seeking presidential clemency.

He is currently lodged in Jorhat Central Jail in Assam.
(With inputs from PTI)

Source: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-05-01/india/38956539_1_death-sentence-mercy-plea-m-n-das [accessed on 2nd May 2013]

Three get death sentences for rape and murder of four-year-old

ucanews.com reporter, Bhopal India April 29, 2013

A court in central Madhya Pradesh state sentenced three men to death for the rape and murder of a four-year-old girl on Friday in a case which has attracted less international attention than the more recent rape of a five-year-old in New Delhi but has prompted outrage in India.
In chaotic scenes, the crowd outside the courthouse in Indore, the state capital, tried to attack the three defendants – named as Babu, Jitrenda and Sunny – but were held back by police.
Judge Indra Singh called the crime the “rarest of the rare” after handing down the three death sentences despite an appeal by the defense who said the men were young and deserved leniency. All three are in their early twenties.
Autorickshaw driver Babu and his two unemployed friends were found guilty of abducting the four-year-old victim after she accompanied her father to a hospital in Indore for treatment for his tuberculosis in June last year.
After watching a marriage procession late in the evening, the girl then went missing. Her body was later found with a smashed skull in a drain close to a police station.
Police tracked down the three men responsible after they left a cheque and a note near the body in an apparent attempt to pay compensation. They were captured about 50 miles south of Indore in the town of Omkareshwar preparing to flee, police said.
The case is among the most gruesome in a string of high-profile recent rape cases in India that have sparked outrage inside the country and lurid headlines in international media.
Last month, a Swiss woman was raped in Madhya Pradesh during a cycle tour and on Saturday a six-year-old girl was raped in New Delhi in a public toilet, just a few days after a five-year-old was abducted and raped during a two-day ordeal.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has come under rising criticism from rival political parties with every new case, particularly in Madhya Pradesh, which has recorded the highest number of rape cases in the country in recent years. Government statistics show there are nine rapes a day and 25 gang rapes every month there.
Madhya Pradesh opposition Congress Party leader Ajay Singh said that the BJP has lost the "moral right to continue" in office as an “anarchy-like situation" prevails in the state with no safety for women and children.
“What we see is nothing but the absolute collapse of law and order,” said Badal Saroj, secretary of the Communist Party’s state unit.
In response to criticism, the government has attempted to fast-track the prosecution of rape cases, while in Madhya Pradesh State Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan has ordered the establishment of a new 'neighborhood watch' scheme of community law enforcement modeled on the UK.
Source : http://www.ucanews.com/news/three-get-death-sentences-for-rape-and-murder-of-four-year-old/68133 

Bhopal : Death sentence in 6 cases from January 2013 till date

Ankur Sirothia, TNN | Apr 27, 2013
BHOPAL: In Madhya Pradesh, charge-sheets are being put up in courts by the police after completing investigation into cases of identified crimes against women within time-limit, the officials said.

From January 2013 till date, death sentence has been awarded in 6 cases, life imprisonment in 42 cases, over 10-year sentence in 59 cases and below 10-year sentences has been awarded in 377 cases. Accused in total 484 cases have been awarded punishment during this period.

During year 2012, convicts were sentenced by sessions courts in 808 cases of crimes against women. Of these, 2 were awarded death sentence, 137 life imprisonment, 137 over 10-year and 241 over 5 years and convicts in 291 cases were awarded less than 5-year imprisonment.

During year 2013, death sentence has been awarded to Rajkumar Urao, convict of rape and murder under police station Nainpur in Mandla district, Dilip Kumar Bankar under Jahangirabad police Station Bhopal, Panjam Lodhi under Belkhera police station Jabalpur, Anokhi under Khandwa police station, Nandkishore Bankar under TT Nagar police station Bhopal and Babu alias Ketan, Sunnay alias Devendra and Jitendra under MIG police station Indore, the officials added.  

Source : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhopal/Death-sentence-in-6-cases-from-January-2013-till-date/articleshow/19759473.cms