The stay on the execution of four associates of the slain forest brigand, Veerappan has been extended by the\u00a0Supreme Court extended who were convicted of killing 22 persons in a landmine blast in 1993 and whose mercy petitions were rejected by President Pranab Mukherjee.<\/p>\n
A Bench of Chief Justice Altamas Kabir and Justices Anil R. Dave and Vikramajit Sen extended the stay granted on a writ petition filed by advocate Shamik Narain and the convicts \u2014 Simon, Gnanaprakash, Madaiah and Bilavendran \u2014 seeking that their death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment.<\/p>\n
Earlier, the Chief Justice told senior counsel Colin Gonsalves, appearing for the petitioners, that since another Bench, headed by Justice G.S. Singhvi, had reserved orders in the cases involving Bhullar and other death-row convicts, the three-member Bench would await its judgment before taking up the matter. In the alternative, it would have to send the petition to the same Bench. But being a three-judge Bench, the CJI said, \u201cwe would like to await\u2026 the two-judge Bench\u2019s judgment.\u201d The \u201cproper course of action\u201d would be to adjourn the matter until then. The case was adjourned for six weeks. The CJI-led Bench also issued notice to the Central and Karnataka governments.<\/p>\n
In his submissions, Additional Solicitor-General Harin Raval said the Justice Singhvi-led Bench had called for records of all cases, in which mercy petitions were pending or disposed of, and reserved judgment on April 19, 2012.<\/p>\n
In their petition, the convicts, who have been lodged in the Hindalga Central Jail in Belgaum since 2004, said they were now aged between 50 and 64. They filed mercy petitions on February 12, 2004, after the Supreme Court had upheld their conviction by a TADA court in Mysore in 2001 and enhanced the punishment to death. Their mercy petitions had been pending for nine years, during which period they suffered excruciating agony and uncertainty. \u201cThey underwent a lingering death under the shadow of the hangman\u2019s noose, expecting to be executed at any moment. Along with them, their families experienced extreme anguish.\u201d<\/p>\n
The petitioners said: \u201cThey have become mentally and physically debilitated.\u201d<\/p>\n
On February 12 this year, they were informed by prison authorities that their mercy petitions were rejected by the President. \u201cThey have been in jail\u2026 since 14.7.2003, a large part of which was spent in single-cell confinement. In view of the undue delay in the execution of the death sentence and adjudication of the mercy petitions, they have approached this court for an appropriate writ prohibiting the execution of the sentence of death and for alteration of the sentence to\u2026 life imprisonment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The stay on the execution of four associates of the slain forest brigand, Veerappan has been extended by the\u00a0Supreme Court extended who were convicted of killing 22 persons in a landmine blast in 1993 and whose mercy petitions were rejected by President Pranab Mukherjee. A Bench of Chief Justice Altamas Kabir and Justices Anil R. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[17013,21628,17348,21624,21626,1215,21623,21622,19225,21627,4160,21630,12117,21211,21625,47726,21629,21576],"class_list":["post-26900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-top-law-news","tag-additional-solicitor-general-harin-raval","tag-bilavendran","tag-chief-justice-altamas-kabir","tag-colin-gonsalves","tag-gnanaprakash","tag-justice","tag-justices-anil-r-dave","tag-landmine-blast","tag-life-imprisonment","tag-madaiah","tag-mercy-petitions","tag-physically-debilitated","tag-president-pranab-mukherjee","tag-sentence-of-death","tag-simon","tag-supreme-court","tag-tada-court","tag-vikramajit-sen"],"yoast_head":"\n