Summary
The Supreme Court dismissed Akshay Kumar Singh’s challenge to rejection of his mercy petition, finding no ground for interference within the limited scope of clemency review. The submissions did not establish non-application of mind or influence by reported public statements. Alleged prison torture, a pending divorce case and remission petitions did not supply a permissible basis for reviewing the President’s decision in this proceeding.
Issues
- Whether the grounds advanced established a recognised defect in the President’s rejection of the mercy petition.
- Whether prison-treatment allegations and subsequent personal or remission proceedings justified review.
Held
- Clemency orders remain reviewable for non-application of mind, mala fides, extraneous or wholly irrelevant considerations, exclusion of relevant material or arbitrariness. The review jurisdiction is confined to those recognised grounds. (¶¶ 5, 9)
- The submissions disclosed no basis for finding non-application of mind. The Court declined to infer that newspaper reports of interviews by persons in authority had influenced the President’s decision. (¶¶ 6, 7)
- Alleged torture in prison did not furnish a ground to review the mercy rejection here. The pending divorce case and petitions under Sections 432 and 433 CrPC likewise did not establish a permissible review ground or show that the President should have considered those subsequent events. (¶¶ 6, 8, 9)
- Injuries and treatment of a co-convict were not relevant to this petition. Applying its earlier co-convict decisions, the Court found no basis to entertain the challenge. (¶¶ 10, 11)
Result
Writ petition dismissed; the order rejecting the mercy petition left undisturbed.