No leniency for Kashmiri separatist jailed since 1993: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea of Ashiq Hussain Faktoo, a Kashmiri separatist and former Hizbul Mujahideen militant, seeking a review of the life sentence award to him for killing human rights activist H N Wanchoo.

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea of Ashiq Hussain Faktoo, a Kashmiri separatist and former Hizbul Mujahideen militant, seeking a review of the life sentence award to him for killing human rights activist H N Wanchoo.

Faktoo, who has been in jail since 1993, is the husband of separatist leader Asiya Andrabi.

A three-judge bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi said the contention that the judgment was erroneous would not enable the court to reopen the entire case. The bench said the open-court hearing of review petitions is a matter of right only in cases involving death sentence.

“The present writ petition under Article 32 of the Constitution of India by no stretch of reasoning would fit into any of the permissible categories of post-conviction exercises permissible in law as laid down by this court,” the court said in its verdict.

Senior advocate Ram Jethmalani, appearing for Faktoo, assailed the 2003 verdict of the apex court convicting the separatist leader, on the ground that his confession recorded under the TADA was not admissible as evidence on grounds, including that it had not been corroborated.

The apex court referred to a Constitution bench judgment in the Rupa Ashok Hurra case in which the legal doctrine of ex debito justitiae — a matter ex debito justiciae is one which a litigant is entitled merely upon asking for it — had been dealt with.

The court noted that if a judgement is such that it has the effect of eroding the public confidence in the justice delivery system, only then it can revisit the entire case to set the things right, which it said is not the case at hand. 

The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea of Ashiq Hussain Faktoo, a Kashmiri separatist and former Hizbul Mujahideen militant, seeking a review of the life sentence award to him for killing human rights activist H N Wanchoo.

Faktoo, who has been in jail since 1993, is the husband of separatist leader Asiya Andrabi.

A three-judge bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi said the contention that the judgment was erroneous would not enable the court to reopen the entire case. The bench said the open-court hearing of review petitions is a matter of right only in cases involving death sentence.

“The present writ petition under Article 32 of the Constitution of India by no stretch of reasoning would fit into any of the permissible categories of post-conviction exercises permissible in law as laid down by this court,” the court said in its verdict.

Senior advocate Ram Jethmalani, appearing for Faktoo, assailed the 2003 verdict of the apex court convicting the separatist leader, on the ground that his confession recorded under the TADA was not admissible as evidence on grounds, including that it had not been corroborated.

The apex court referred to a Constitution bench judgment in the Rupa Ashok Hurra case in which the legal doctrine of ex debito justitiae — a matter ex debito justiciae is one which a litigant is entitled merely upon asking for it — had been dealt with.

The court noted that if a judgement is such that it has the effect of eroding the public confidence in the justice delivery system, only then it can revisit the entire case to set the things right, which it said is not the case at hand. 

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