Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar to contest Delhi Govt’s decision rejecting his release

GS Paul

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Amritsar, February 29

Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, a 1993 Delhi bomb blast convict, will challenge the decision of the Delhi Government’s Sentence Review Board (SRB) which had rejected his premature release.

Has been in jail since 1995

• Bhullar, a professor at Guru Nanak Engineering College, Ludhiana, belonged to Dyalpura Bhai Ka village in Bathinda
• He was booked under TADA Act and other laws in September 1993 in connection with the Delhi bomb blasts case
• Was arrested in 1995 and convicted by a TADA court. He was awarded the death sentence on August 25, 2001
• His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by Supreme Court on March 31, 2014. He is shifted to Central Jail, Amritsar, in 2015 from Tihar Jail, Delhi

Meanwhile, his lawyer JS Manjpur said his earlier plea with the Punjab and Haryana High Court, seeking directions to the Delhi Government to decide on his premature release submission, stood infructuous and hence was withdrawn.

“After consulting with Bhullar’s family, we could now take the next legal course,” he said.

During the SRB meeting held on December 21, 2023, around 14 out of 46 cases of convicts were recommended for remission, but Bhullar’s case was rejected.

Navneet Kaur, Bhullar’s wife, urged the Centre to implement its 2019 notification. “Even the state government has the provision for remission, but only the political will was required”, she said.

The Centre had announced that Bhullar would be given special remission under Article 161 of the Constitution on the occasion of the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev in 2019, but in vain.

He was convicted and sentenced to death in 2001 and lodged in Tihar Jail, New Delhi, under the TADA Act. Three years later, the Supreme Court had commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment, keeping in view his ill health and undue delay in trial.

For the past 13 years, he has been suffering from psychotic symptoms, hypertension and schizophrenia (mental disorder). In 2015, he was shifted to Amritsar Central Jail on health grounds. Since then, he has been under treatment at Government Hospital.