Summary
A man sentenced to death for a 1998 rape and murder was refused mercy by the Governor of Karnataka and then the President. He sought commutation for delay in deciding the mercy petitions and for solitary confinement. The Karnataka High Court dismissed his petition. The Supreme Court held that the two years and three months taken to decide the petitions at two levels was not inordinate, especially as a stay of execution was in force throughout. But prison records showed about ten years of solitary confinement in a single cell from 2006. Before the mercy petition was decided, that breached Sunil Batra, and it visibly harmed his mental health. The death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment with a minimum of 30 years before any remission. The Court also called for revising the instruction that requires mercy petitions before review is exhausted.
Issues
- Whether the time taken to decide the appellant's mercy petitions amounted to inordinate delay warranting commutation of the death sentence.
- Whether the appellant's segregation in solitary confinement from the trial court's sentence onwards entitled him to commutation.
Provisions considered
- Section 30(2), Prisons Act, 1894A prisoner is not 'under sentence of death' for segregation until the sentence is finally executable after mercy petitions are disposed of, so his earlier solitary confinement lacked legal sanction. (¶¶ 21, 22, 24)
- Section 29, Prisons Act, 1894The medical officer's daily visits and report of solitary confinement since 2006 followed this mandate and supported the finding that he had been so confined. (¶¶ 19, 20)
- Articles 21, 32, 72 and 161, Constitution of IndiaUndue, unexplained delay in deciding mercy petitions or unlawful solitary confinement may warrant commutation; the delay here was not inordinate, but the solitary confinement justified commutation. (¶¶ 12, 14, 17, 23, 25)
Held
- The mercy petitions were decided by the Governor and then the President within about two years and three months, with information sought and supplied in between; that was not inordinate delay, and a stay of execution was in force all along, unlike Perarivalan where the Governor did not act on the Cabinet's recommendation. (¶¶ 15, 16, 17)
- The appellant was kept in solitary confinement in a single cell from 2006 to 2016, conditions being relaxed only thereafter; segregation before disposal of the mercy petition in 2013 was without sanction of law and contrary to Sunil Batra. (¶¶ 19, 20, 21, 23)
- The medical officer's and jail superintendent's letters showed the ill effects of the solitary confinement on the appellant's mental health, so he was entitled to commutation of the death sentence to life imprisonment. (¶¶ 19, 25)
- Following Mohd. Mannan, the life sentence carries a minimum of 30 years' actual imprisonment before any remission application is considered on its merits, failing which it runs for the remainder of his life. (¶¶ 26, 27)
- The instruction requiring a mercy petition within seven days of the dismissal of the appeal, before the thirty-day review period ends, is anomalous and needs modification to permit mercy petitions after judicial remedies are exhausted. (¶ 29)
Result
Appeal allowed; the death sentence commuted to imprisonment for life with a minimum of 30 years' actual sentence before any remission application is considered on its merits, and, absent remission, for the remainder of his life.