Supreme Court for death rap case in open court
Apex court also made it clear that a condemned convict, can approach the SC for re-opening of his case
New Delhi: Years spent behind bars during prolonged judicial proceedings cannot be a ground for converting death sentence to life imprisonment, the SC on Tuesday said while ruling that review plea of condemned prisoners must be given an open court hearing.
A five-judge Constitution bench, by a majority verdict of four to one, held that “limited” oral hearing for an outer limit of 30 minutes be granted in all death sentence cases.
The apex court also made it clear that a condemned convict, whose review plea has been dismissed, can approach the SC for re-opening of his case.
“Delay in judicial proceedings during time taken in court proceedings cannot be taken into account to say that there is a delay which would convert a death sentence into one for life,” the apex court said while dismissing the plea of Red Fort attack death convict Mohd. Arif who is in jail for the last 13-and-a-half years.
While CJI R.M. Lodha and Justices J.S. Khehar, A.K. Sikri and Rohinton F. Nariman favoured open court hearing, Justice J. Chelameswar gave a dissenting verdict.
“Death penalty is irreversible in nature. Once a death sentence is executed, that results in taking away the life of the convict. If it is found thereafter that such a sentence was not warranted, that would be of no use as the life of that person cannot be brought back. We feel that if the fundamental right to life is involved, any procedure to be just, fair and reasonable should take into account the two factors mentioned above” Justice Nariman, said.