New Delhi April 12 : Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) expressed its regret over
today’s Supreme Court judgement rejecting Devinder Singh Bhullar’s plea to
commute his death penalty to life sentence on the ground that he underwent
great agony for 11 years awaiting the President’s decision on his mercy
plea.
“It is an opportunity lost for recognising ‘death row syndrome’ i.e. the
traumatic stress imposed on a prisoner by having to wait on prison wings
set aside for those sentenced to death. The European Court of Human Rights
in its judgement in the case of Soering v United Kingdom has already
recognised ‘death row syndrome’ to be in violation of Article 3 of the
European Convention on Human Rights relating to torture, inhuman and
degrading treatment, bearing in mind the age and mental well-being of the
person concerned and the conditions and length of detention on death row”.
– stated Mr Suhas Chakma, Director of Asian Centre for Human Rights.
“Mr Bhullar’s case calls for development of criteria for consideration of
mercy pleas by the President. Since Mr. Justice M.B Shah in his dissenting
judgment held that confessional statement of Bhullar as recorded by the
investigating officer cannot be the sole basis for awarding death sentence
to him, President Patil should have taken the dissenting judgement into
consideration as she had commuted death sentences into life imprisonment
for death-row convicts in whose cases there was no dissenting opinion of
any judge. India’s tilt against political crimes is palpable.” further
stated Mr Chakma.
The decisions of the Government of India with respect to mercy pleas
have been arbitrary, discriminatory, secretive and based on political
considerations. Even though all death row convicts are equal before the
law after their conviction, the Government of India has been arbitrarily
picking up death-row convicts to secretly hang them.
“After this judgement, India will have to resume execution including of 17
death row convicts who had filed petitions before the Courts on the
grounds of delay. India must decide whether it wants the tag of the top
five executioners of the world along with China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and
Iraq. During 2001 to 2011, India considered cases of at least 5,776 death
row convicts i.e. 4,321 convicts whose death sentences were commuted to
life sentences and 1,455 convicts whose death sentence were confirmed .(SP News)
