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 Gehlot

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 Khan

Mofil 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 Petitions

Thereafter, 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 held that a review petition filed by a convict whose death penalty is affirmed by it is required to be heard in open Court but cannot be decided by circulation. "39. Henceforth, in all cases in which death sentence has been awarded by the High Court in appeals pending before the Supreme Court, only a bench of three Hon'ble Judges will hear the same. This is for the reason that at least three judicially trained minds need to apply their minds at the final stage of the journey of a convict on death row, given the vagaries of the sentencing procedure outlined above. At present, we are not persuaded to have a minimum of 5 learned Judges hear all death sentence cases. Further, we agree with the submission of Shri Luthra that a review is ordinarily to be heard only by the same bench which originally heard the criminal appeal. This is obviously for the reason that in order that a review succeeds, errors apparent on the record have to be found. It is axiomatic that the same learned Judges alleged to have committed the error be called upon now to rectify such error."

The court also clarified that the right of a limited oral hearing in review petitions where death sentence is given, shall be applicable only in pending review petitions and such petitions filed in future. "It will also apply where a review petition is already dismissed but the death sentence is not executed so far. In such cases, the petitioners can apply for the reopening of their review petition within one month from the date of this judgment. However, in those cases where even a curative petition is dismissed, it would not be proper to reopen such matters.", it had added. This was how the above petitions came to be filed.

Anokhilal

Anokhilal was convicted and sentenced to death in March 2013 for committing the murder of a minor girl, aged nine years, after raping and performing carnal sex with her. The entire trial finished within thirteen days. The Madhya Pradesh High Court upheld the death penalty in June 2013. Setting aside these judgment, the Apex Court, on appeal filed by the accused directed de novo consideration of the case. The Court observed that expeditious disposal of criminal cases must never result in burying the cause of justice.

The court, however, said that it would explore the possibility of using video-conferencing for the purpose of recording evidence since it is believed that such use will eliminate the time taken for summoning the witnesses to Court. This is after the court noticed that Section 309(1)of the Cr.P.C.(as amended in 2018) provides a time limit of 60 days within which the trial is supposed to be completed. This appeal is being listed for examination of this issue.

All other cases are appeals filed by the accused whose death penalty was confirmed by the respective High Courts.

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