Summary
The Supreme Court dismissed Pawan Kumar Gupta’s challenge to rejection of his mercy petition. Judicial review of clemency is confined to recognised defects such as non-application of mind, mala fides, irrelevant considerations, exclusion of relevant material or arbitrariness. His juvenility plea had already been considered and rejected, and the common-intention argument revisited concluded criminal findings. No basis was established for finding that the President had considered the petition without an open mind.
Issues
- Whether the grounds advanced justified judicial review of rejection of the mercy petition.
- Whether the juvenility, prison-treatment, common-intention or press-report contentions warranted interference.
Held
- Review of presidential or gubernatorial clemency orders is available on limited grounds: non-application of mind, mala fides, extraneous or wholly irrelevant considerations, exclusion of relevant material and arbitrariness. It is not a fresh adjudication of the underlying criminal case. (¶¶ 10, 11, 17, 18)
- The assertion that juvenility remained undetermined was rejected because that plea had already been considered and rejected through the earlier court proceedings, including the Supreme Court’s detailed dismissal of the special leave petition. (¶¶ 12, 13, 14, 15)
- Alleged prison torture, denied by the State with an assertion of proper treatment, did not provide a ground in this proceeding to review the executive rejection. The common-intention argument likewise concerned matters already adjudicated in the criminal case. (¶¶ 16, 17, 18)
- Applying the earlier co-convict decisions, the Court found no recognised ground for review. It declined to infer from the submissions that the President had failed to consider the petitioner’s mercy petition with an open mind. (¶¶ 19, 20, 21)
Result
Writ petition dismissed; rejection of the mercy petition left undisturbed.