They haven’t found a hangman yet, have they?

Vijay (Hiremath) calls me up and says, “Did you read that Mahendra Das and Prof. Bhullar’s mercy petitions have been rejected by the President’s office?” I was on one of my fieldwork trips and was shocked to hear this news! He put me in touch with Yug Chaudhry who wanted to work on this case. We contacted the prison and then the relatives of Mahendra Das. Yug worked on the draft and contacted several others. He asked me a day before we left for Guahati, “Reena will you come also for this hearing?” I thought I must go because I knew the family by then and I had interviewed Mahendra Das just a few weeks before his petition was rejected by our the $President. We reached Guahati High Court next day i.e. 7th June 2011 at 12:45 pm and the petition was already filed by Adv. Arup Borbora. We met all the lawyers and also the relatives. Das’s mother – Kusum Bala Das cried silently most of the time. His sister told me, “If anything happens to our brother, we all will kill ourselves.”
In the meantime,Adv. Arup Borbora asked for a special bench of two judges to be created and it was done as this was a special matter. The court proceedings began at 3:45 where a special bench of judges (Justice BP Katakey and Justice BK Sharma) was constituted to hear this matter as the Chief Justice was out of town. The counsel on behalf of the mother were Senior Advocates A.K. Bhattacharya, Arup Borbora and Yug Chaudhry. We were in Court Room No. 4 where the relatives asked me sit beside them. I sat next to them of course - more than for them, it was for my own contentment. The counsel Adv. Bhattacharya spoke and his opening line was, “There is a lawyer named Yug Chaudhry coming all the way from Mumbai for this.” The judge immediately said, “So what difference does it make?” Adv. Bhattacharya’s response was “Yes it makes a difference; it makes a difference because nobody in Assam came forward for this and it took a Human Rights advocate from Mumbai to do this. So it makes a difference” The judge had to agree.
The arguments went on. The judge asked, “So why have you come to the High Court? Why not go to the Apex Court?” Adv. Bhattacharya’s response every time was really good. He said, “Yes we should go to the Supreme Court. But who would go? This old mother? (Pointing at the mother) Do you think she’s in a capacity to go? Even if she goes, don’t you think that Mahendra Das will be hanged by then?” The question raised was to seek an explanation for the inordinate delay from President’s office.
The judge asked the State lawyers and all they could say was “How can we not listen to the Supreme court’s orders?” They have been asked to file a reply before the next hearing on 17th June. The judges gave a very positive order stating Triveniben (SCR p.596: SCC p.357: SCC (Cri) p.474, para 20). Till then the proposed execution of the man remained in suspension.
The next hearing took place on 17th July 2011. The family came to the court. We didn’t know till our matter came up that the State had filed a reply. However the Centre did not and hence we were given another date which is 21st July 2011. The family invited me to their home. I couldn’t say no. I travelled for three hours to reach their house. Mahendra Das’s house is in a pitiful state. A heavy rain can demolish the whole structure. The family has a hand to mouth existence. I wonder how they managed to come to Guahati High Court for the hearing spending so much of money! The mother spoke only in Assamese. His sister translated it for me. She asked me, “So when is my son going to be released?” I didn’t have an answer. The sister asked me, “So what will happen? Will his sentence be commuted to life?” I said, “We all are hoping for that but one simply cannot say ‘It will be done’. There is a great possibility that they might just reject it in the High Court. But we all still hope that the Court and the State of Assam will do everything in their power to commute this sentence”. She again asked, “But they haven’t found a hangman yet, have they?” I couldn’t bring myself to lie, I said, “If I am not mistaken, they have found a hangman from Meerut”. We all were silent for a moment. I again told them that, “We all hope that our country realizes that it is barbaric to execute a person after 15 years in the prison”. The relatives dropped me back in Guahati, asked me to come back again when Mahendra Das is home. I nodded and left.

RMG

Death in drug case: Discretion with judge

The verdict came following a petition filed by the Indian Harm Reduction Network (IHRN), a registered consortium of NGOs working for humane drug policies. The NGO had moved the HC after Ghulam Malik, accused in an NDPS case, was awarded the death sentence by a special court in December 2007, as it was his second. The petitioners challenged the constitutional validity of Section 31(A), which prescribes mandatory death sentence for certain drug offences upon subsequent conviction.

The NGO's counsel, Anand Grover, and advocate Vijay Hiremath, and the convict's advocate, H E Mooman, argued the provision was arbitrary and disproportionate. Grover pointed out that it prevented individualized sentencing and denied the accused a chance to be heard on the question of sentence.

In Satya Narayan Dash's affidavit, under secretary, finance ministry, had justified the death penalty saying it was applicable only to categories of offences involving commercial quantity of narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances.


Hetal Vyas, TNN Jun 17, 2011, 07.42am IST
Source : (http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-06-17/mumbai/29669247_1_death-penalty-ghulam-malik-ndps-case)

Mercy Petition Rejected

There is news that the President of India has rejected the mercy petition of Devinderpal Singh Bhullar and Mahendra Nath Das.

Devinderpal Singh Bhullar has been convicted for his alleged terrorist acts. The most interesting fact about this case, is that while hearing his appeal in the Supreme Court, 2 judges on the bench convicted and sentenced him to death while the third judge had acquitted him.
The judges of the highest court in this country not only have disagreement on the sentence of Devinderpal but completely disagree on his guilt and conviction, under these circumstances the death sentence should have been commuted to life. Its extremely unfortunate that the home ministry has not looked into this issue and had rejected the mercy petition.

Ajmal Kasab, 26/11 terrorist, gets death

Mumbai: Ajmal Amir Kasab, the Pakistani terrorist who killed scores of people during the attacks on Mumbai in November 2008, was on Thursday sentenced to death by a court.

Special Judge M L Tahaliyani gave Kasab, 22, death sentence on five counts of murder, conspiracy to murder, waging war against the country, abetting murder and committing terrorist activities under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.

Kasab was also awarded life imprisonment on five other counts, which included attempt to murder, criminal conspiracy and violation of the Explosive Substances Act.
"In the court's opinion, Kasab has no chance to reform. Keeping such a terrorist alive will be a lingering danger to the society and the Indian government," said Tahaliyani while pronouncing his verdict, three days after he convicted him for the massacre.


The judge cited the example of the Kandahar hijack case in which arrested terrorists were swapped for passengers held hostage. "If Kasab is kept alive, this situation may occur again," he said. “Kasab has been convicted of grievous crime and that he should be hanged by the neck till death,” said Tahaliyani.


Kasab broke down during the sentencing and the judge gave permission to drink water.The court said Kasab had gone to the Lashkar-e-Toiba, the Pakistan militant group blamed for the Mumbai attacks, voluntarily and offered to become a mujahideen.


The court rejected defence lawyer K P Pawar's argument that Kasab had acted on the directions of Laskhar founder Hafiz Sayeed. Pawar’s plea that his client should be given life sentence because he was young and was "blinded by religion" was rejected by the judge.


Kasab was found guilty of 80 offences, including waging war against the nation, which is punishable with the death penalty. Kasab and his associate, Abu Ismail, killed over 70 people at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, before heading for the Cama hospital, where they killed three senior police officers. As per the law, the death penalty will have to be confirmed by the Bombay High Court. Kasab also has the right to move the High Court against the trial court verdict.


Even if the High Court upholds the judgment, he can go in appeal to the Supreme Court. If the apex court too upholds the sentence, he has the option of filing a mercy petition before the President of India.


Ref: http://ibnlive.in.com/news/ajmal-kasab-2611-terrorist-gets-death-sentence/114699-3.html?from=tn accessed on 6th May 2010

Death penalty for hijacking

NEW DELHI: The government on Friday cleared proposals to make the anti-hijacking law more stringent by including the death penalty.

“The Union Cabinet has approved a proposal of the Civil Aviation Ministry to amend the Anti-Hijacking Act of 1982,” Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni told journalists after a meeting.

She said the UPA-I had constituted a Group of Ministers (GoM) on the issue. After UPA-II took over, a new GoM, headed by Home Minister P. Chidambaram, gave the final shape to the proposals.

The GoM included M. Veerappa Moily (Law), Kapil Sibal (Human Resource Development) and Praful Patel (Civil Aviation).

Sections 3 and 4 of the Act, which deal with the definition of hijack and punishment for the offence are proposed to be amended to include the death penalty. Currently, the law provides for life imprisonment and a fine.

The GoM earlier examined the proposals to amend the law to include these aspects as well as conspiracy.

During the UPA I regime, the government worked out a policy to provide for shooting down an aircraft once it was established that the plane was hijacked and that the hijackers intended targeting a vital installation by using it as a missile as it happened in the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001.

No negotiation

The policy, which was approved by the Cabinet Committee on Security during the last UPA government, also provides for immobilisation of the plane and disallowing it to take off if the hijack occurs on Indian soil. It opposes any negotiation with the hijackers on their demands.

These provisions were aimed at countering situations like the hijack of an Indian Airlines plane in December 1999 to Kandahar. In that episode, 178 passengers and 11 crew members were swapped for four dreaded terrorists, who were freed and taken to Kandahar. The security forces failed to immobilise the plane when it landed at Amritsar.

(Ref: http://www.hindu.com/2010/03/20/stories/2010032065891200.htm accessed on 25 March 2010)

10 October - World Day Against Death Penalty...

10 October is observed as the world day against death penalty across the world. This event was started by the World Coalition against Death Penalty in 2003. The theme chosen for the year 2009 by the world coalition is educating the youngsters regarding death penalty.

India continues to be one of the minority nations which continues with death penalty and also carries out the executions. A look at some of the figures on death sentences show that in last 2 years the number of cases in which death sentence has been awarded by the lower courts have increased. Though the higher judiciary has over turned several death sentences and commuted them to life imprisonment, the trend is disturbing. Also in some of the recent cases the apex court has commuted the death sentences with the order that the person should not be released prematurely and also should not be given the benefits of parole and furlough. These directions are clearly invading decision making power of the government, wherein they would decide each individual case on its own merit whether to grant parole and furlough or not.

Though there have been no executions after Dhananjoy Chatterjee, the mercy petitions of the persons have been pending for decades and the fate of all the persons on death row hangs in balance.

There is also need for a comprehensive policy on sentencing in India. Today the penal code of the country tells what's the maximum or the minimum sentence for the crime, and all the discretion has been given to the judge. There are various factors that come into play and should be considered while sentencing a person. In the absence of a comprehensive sentencing policy all is left to the judiciary.

In the changing world wherein the Indian Government wants to play a major role in the south Asian region its high time that India follows the example of its neighbours like Nepal and abolishes death penalty at the earliest. In the present legal system, many a times the rich accused get away while the poor get convicted. The same is true about death sentence. Majority of the prisoners on death row are extremely poor.
Retaining death penalty and executing persons is against the basic values of a democratic nation.
India should lead by example in south east Asia and declare a moratorium on all the execution till the laws are amended and death penalty is abolished.

26 year old man sentenced to death in 2 cases Kerala

A sessions judge in Thodpuza has sentenced a man to death in 2 separate cases. 26 year old Jomon has been convicted for killing his family member and neighbours. The incident had taken place in September 2006.

Source : in.news.yahoo.com