New Delhi [India], November 18 (ANI): The Supreme Court on Monday, put on hold its decision passed in the morning asking the secretary to the President of India to place the matter of mercy petition of death-row prisoner Balwant Singh Rajoana before the President with a request to consider it within two weeks.
The Central government, which was absent during the hearing in the morning, mentioned the matter before the apex court and convinced the court to retract the order.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for Centre, told the apex court that Rajoana’s file was with the Home Ministry and not the President and the Union government has things to say in relation to his mercy plea.
On Mehta’s request, the top court decided to take up on November 25 the plea by Balwant Singh Rajoana.
When the matter was taken up in the morning, a bench of Justices BR Gavai, Prashant Kumar Mishra and KV Viswanathan asked the secretary to the President of India to place the matter of mercy petition of Rajoana before the President.
Rajoana was awarded death sentence for assassination of the then Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh in 1995.
The top court was hearing a plea relating to delay in deciding mercy petition of death-row prisoner Rajoana.
On the last hearing, the apex court said that they would only consider Rajoana’s plea seeking release only after hearing the Union government and the state of Punjab.
Rajoana, a sympathiser of the Babbar Khalsa militant group, sought the commutation of his death sentence to life imprisonment in connection with his role in the assassination of Beant Singh.
Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, representing Rajoana, had earlier urged the top court for his temporary release saying he has been in jail for almost 29 years.
Rajoana, a death row convict, sought commutation of the death sentence on the grounds of ‘extraordinary’ and ‘inordinate delay’ of one year and four months in deciding his mercy petition, which remains pending before the President of India.
The petition sought consequential release on the grounds that he has undergone a total sentence of 28 years and eight months as of date, of which 17 years have been served as a death row convict in an “8 x 10” capital punishment cell, including 2.5 years in solitary confinement.
The convict, Balwant Singh Rajoana, was sentenced to death for the murder of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh who died in a bomb explosion in Chandigarh on August 31, 1995.
The Centre had decided on September 27, 2019, to commute the death penalty of Rajoana to a life sentence on the special occasion of the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev. However, the decision is yet to be implemented. (ANI)
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