The Supreme Court on Monday commuted the death sentence of 1993 Delhi bomb blast convict and Khalistani terrorist Devinderpal Singh Bhullar to life term on the ground of delay in deciding his mercy plea and his medical condition.
A four-judge bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam granted life to Bhullar on the ground of delay by the government in deciding his mercy plea and on the basis of his present medical condition.
The apex court bench passed the order on a curative petition filed by Bhullar’s wife Navneet Kaur and said, “We deem it fit to commute the death sentence imposed on Devinderpal Singh Bhullar into life imprisonment both on the ground of unexplained/inordinate delay of eight years in disposal of mercy petition and on the ground of insanity.”
The court referred to the February 8 report of the Delhi-based Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences and said, “The report clearly shows that he is suffering from acute mental illness.”
Bhullar was examined by a team of medical experts on February 5.
Attorney General G E Vahanvati had also said that in view of the January 21 verdict, the court’s earlier judgment of April 12, 2013, by which Bhullar’s plea was rejected, no longer holds ground.
By its April 12, 2013, judgment, the court, while rejecting Bhullar’s plea, held that the delay in the rejection of a mercy petition of a death row convict by the President was not open to judicial review if the conviction was for a terror crime that involved the loss of a large number of innocent lives.
The court, while upsetting that judgment, on January 21, said: “...unexplained delay is one of the grounds for commutation of sentence of death into life imprisonment... The only aspect the courts have to satisfy is that the delay must be unreasonable and unexplained or inordinate at the hands of the executive.”
