6 years on, SC recalls death penalty order

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 21

Six years after dismissing a review petition against confirmation of death penalty awarded to a man from Maharashtra for killing three children and a woman he lived with as her husband, the SC has recalled its order and ordered a fresh hearing on his plea.

The order came from a three-judge Bench headed by Justice Kurian Joseph on November 12 while considering convict Sudam alias Rahul Kaniram Jadhav’s plea for shifting him from Nagpur Central Jail to a prison facility in Aurangabad.

“…we are of the view that the review petitions regarding the sentence need to be considered afresh,” the Bench said, recalling its July 26, 2012, order.

Since the petitioner had claimed that he was medically unfit for execution, the Bench ordered setting up of a medical board to examine him.

The Bench posted the review petition for hearing afresh in the second week of January next year. Sudam was held guilty of murdering four children and a woman by the trial court, which sentenced him to death. The Bombay HC dismissed his appeal.

The SC confirmed the capital punishment in July 2011, describing him as “a menace to society who cannot be reformed”. The SC had said: “Lesser punishment in our opinion shall be fraught with danger as it may expose the society to peril once again at the hands of the appellant.”

In a landmark judgment, a Constitution Bench in 2014 ruled that hearing of cases in which death sentence has been awarded should be by a Bench of three judges and the hearing of review petitions in such cases should be in open court and not in chamber “by circulation” as is the practice.

The Constitution Bench had made it clear that the law laid down by it shall be applicable only in pending review petitions and such petitions filed in future. It had said the ruling would also apply to cases where a review petition was already dismissed but the death sentence was yet to be executed.

In such cases, the petitioners had been given liberty to apply for the reopening of their review petitions within a month from the date of this judgment.