Supreme Court Lists 40 Death Penalty Cases For Hearing From 7th September 2021

The Supreme Court notified that 40 'Death Cases' will be listed before three judge benches from 7th September 2021 onwards.The list includes four review petitions of convicts whose appeals were dismissed by the Court upholding the death penalty.Narayan Chetanram Chaudhary and Jitendra @ Jitu Nayansingh GehlotNarayan Chetanram Chaudhary and Jitendra @ Jitu Nayansingh Gehlot were sentenced to death by the Trial court finding them guilty of committing the murder of five women including one pregnant woman, and two small babies. On 5th September 2000, the Apex Court bench then comprising of Justices K.T. Thomas and R.P. Sethi upheld the High Court verdict that had affirmed the Trial Court sentence awarding death penalty. The Review petition was also dismissed on 24.11.2000. About one and a half decade after dismissal of his review petition, Narayan Chetanram Chaudhary filed an application seeking reopening the Review Petition. He also filed another application under Section 9(2) of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 seeking a declaration that he was a juvenile at the time of commission of offence. The court then referred the matter to the Principal District and Sessions Judge, Pune, to decide the juvenility. The said report stated that he was 12 years and six months, and thus a juvenile on the date of the offence alleged. "Capital punishment can never be imposed on a juvenile. However, the issue of whether the petitioner was a child on the date of the alleged offence has to be finally decided", the court said while posting the review petition for hearing.Mohd. Arif @ Ashfaq vs. State (NCT of Delhi)Mohd. Arif @ Ashfaq was convicted in Red Fort Terror Attack case of 2000 in which three Army personnel were killed. "In fact, this is a unique case where there is one most aggravating circumstance that it was a direct attack on the unity, integrity and sovereignty of India by foreigners. Thus, it was an attack on Mother India. This is apart from the fact that as many as three persons had lost their lives. The conspirators 15 had no place in India. Appellant was a foreign national and had entered India without any authorization or even justification. This is apart from the fact that the appellant built up a conspiracy by practicing deceit and committing various other offences in furtherance of the conspiracy to wage war against India as also to commit murders by launching an unprovoked attack on the soldiers of Indian Army. We, therefore, have no doubts that death sentence was the only sentence in the peculiar circumstance of this case", the Apex Court had observed while dismissing his appeal. Later his review petition was also dismissed.Sunder @ Sundararajan Sunder @ Sundararajan was convicted and sentenced to death penalty for the kidnap and murder of child of 7 years. "The manner in which the child was murdered, and the approach and method adopted by the accused, disclose the traits of outrageous criminality in the behaviour of the accused. The child was first strangulated to death, the dead body of the child was then tied in a gunny bag, and finally the gunny bag was thrown into a water tank. All this was done, in a well thought out and planned manner. This approach of the accused reveals a brutal mindset of the highest order.", the Apex Court had observed while dismissing the appeal and upholding the death penalty on 5 February, 2013.Mofil KhanMofil Khan was convicted and sentenced to death penalty for committing murder of the six persons. The prosecution case against the accused was thus: The accused who were the deceased's brothers and nephews, approached him and started assaulting him with sharp-edged weapons such as sword, tangi, bhujali and spade. The deceased succumbed to the injuries inflicted by the accused persons. Leaving the deceased at the spot, they proceeded towards the house of deceased where, upon hearing the cries of their father, the deceased's two sons had come out on the street. The accused assaulted the two unarmed brothers with the weapons due to which the two brothers collapsed and died in front of their house. Thereafter, the accused entered the house of the deceased and committed murder of wife of the deceased and his four sons. The Apex Court dismissed their appeals and upheld the death penalty on 9th October 2014.Reopening Of Review PetitionsThereafter, Ashfaq, Sunder and some other death convicts filed a writ petition before the Apex Court in which they raised these issues: 1) the hearing of cases in which death sentence has been awarded should be by a Bench of at least three if not five Supreme Court Judges and (2) the hearing of Review Petitions in death sentence cases should not be by circulation but should only be in open Court, and accordingly Order XL Rule 3 of the Supreme Court Rules, 1966 should be declared to be unconstitutional inasmuch as persons on death row are denied an oral hearing. In its judgment passed in these writ petitions, the court...

Supreme Court Lists 40 Death Penalty Cases For Hearing From 7th September 2021

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