Stay on Rajiv Gandhi killers’ execution sparks debate

New Delhi, August 31
The resolution passed by the Tamil Nadu Assembly against the scheduled hanging of three convicts in the 1991 Rajiv Gandhi assassination case and the judicial stay on their executions have kicked off a raging, nationwide debate — both legal and political — on death sentences and the long delays in deciding mercy petitions.
The three convicts — Murugan, Santhan and Arivu — got a reprieve for eight weeks from the Madras High Court yesterday by contending that their death sentences should be commuted to life due to the 11 years of delay in rejecting their mercy petitions.
This development has come close on the heels of two similar pleas made by Afzal Guru, sentenced to death for the December 13, 2001, terror attack on Parliament, and Devender Pal Singh Bhullar, facing gallows for the 1993 bomb attack on the then Youth Congress leader MS Bitta. Both Bhullar and Afzal Guru have raised similar arguments in their petitions filed in the Supreme Court: they can’t be subjected to two sentences — life term as well as hanging.
All five death row convicts have cited apex court verdicts which said delays over mercy pleas would entail commutation of the death sentences. However, the Supreme Court has not specified the period of delay.
On May 23 this year, an apex court Bench comprising Justices GS Singhvi and CK Prasad directed the government to provide the reasons for the delay in deciding Bhullar’s mercy plea. Incidentally, the President rejected his plea two days later.
In his plea for expediting a decision on his mercy petition, Afzal Guru said death sentence would be much better than being subjected to solitary confinement for several years.
While constitutional and legal experts debate the intricacies involved in such cases, the Tamil Nadu Assembly resolution calling for pardon for the killers of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi has fuelled a political row. Responding to the Assembly resolution, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah remarked that a similar move by his state assembly on Afzal Guru would not have been taken lightly. The BJP came out with a quick response, describing his remarks as “unfortunate.”
BJP spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad said his party was clearly of the view that all death row convicts, whose mercy pleas were rejected, should be executed.
Political analysts feel such developments would set a dangerous trend, with the state Assemblies concerned passing similar resolutions, be it in the case of Bhullar or others. More than 25 mercy petitions are still pending with the Union Home Ministry or the President and this explains why there have been very few executions in recent years. Since April 27, 1995, when “Auto” Shankar was hanged in Salem, Tamil Nadu, only one execution has taken place in the past 15 years. That was of Dhananjoy Chatterjee in August 2004 in Alipore jail in Kolkata for the gruesome rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl in 1990. According to official figures, only 52 people have been executed since Independence.