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Centre seeks guidelines on execution of convicts
Why in news?
- Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) recently moved SC to frame guidelines to execute death penalty of condemned prisoners within seven days of rejection of their mercy petitions.
More in news
- Application Filed by MHA:
(1) To seek “appropriate clarification/modification and directions” in the 2014 Shatrughan Singh Chauhan and another vs Union of India judgment that defined the procedure to be adopted in cases of prisoners on death row.
(2) Accused-centric rules Guidelines:
(a) The existing guidelines, are “accused-centric” as they do not take into account an irreparable mental trauma, agony, upheaval and derangement of the victims and their family members, the collective conscience of the nation and the deterrent effect which the capital punishment intends to make.
(b) It is found several years before and after the judgment in the Shatrughan case that convicts of even such heinous crimes under the garb of Article 21 take the judicial process for a ride,” the MHA said.
(3) Direction From Court Requested:
(a) If the convict of death sentence wants to file a mercy petition, it would be mandatory for a convict of death sentence to do so only within a period of 7 days from the date of receipt of death warrant issued by the competent court”.
(b) The court should “mandate all the competent courts, State governments, prison authorities in the country to issue death warrant of a convict within 7 days of the rejection of his mercy petition and to execute death sentence within seven days thereafter irrespective of the stage of review petition/curative petition/mercy petition of his co-convicts.
(c) It would be permissible for the death convicts to file curative petition after rejection of review petition only within a time to be stipulated by this court.
- Why was the Request Filed by MHA:
(1) The move comes amid various pleas filed by convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape case that has delayed their hanging.
(2) The four convicts are on death row since 2013 after a trial court ruled against them.
(3) Multiple curative petitions and mercy pleas filed before the President of India have been rejected.
Sources
The Hindu