New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Wednesday said the right to live does not extinguish with the top court upholding the death sentence of convicts in murder cases as it quashed the execution of death warrants of Shabnam and her paramour Salim for killing seven members of the woman’s family.
“Right to live under Article 21 does not end with the confirmation of the death sentence by the Supreme Court,” said the vacation bench of Justice A.K. Sikri and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit, as it quashed the execution of death warrants issued by the sessions judge.
Pronouncing the order, Justice Sikri said it was for “this reason even when death sentence has to be executed, the human dignity is protected”.
“That is the reason there are many judgments as to the manner in which the execution is carried should be as painless as possible,” the court said. It held that issuance of death warrants by the sessions judge within six days of the apex court upholding the death sentence was “clearly unwarranted”.
The court said there was a 30-day limitation period for filing review petition seeking recall of the verdict that affirms the death sentence.
Referring to an earlier Constitution bench judgment of the apex court which said the review petition in a death sentence verdict would be heard by a three-judge bench in an open court, the court said this clearly puts the review plea in death sentence cases on a “higher pedestal” than review pleas in other cases which are decided by circulation among the concerned judges.
Besides the review petition, the death row convict also has the avenue of his death sentence considered by the governor or the president in a mercy petition.
The bench also pointed to the apex court verdict as well as the verdict of the Allahabad High court on the procedure of executing death warrants and the instructions issued by the union home ministry detailing six steps that the authorities have to observe before the actual execution of death sentence.
In the instant case, the sessions judge signed the death warrants on May 21, barely six days after the apex court on May 15 reaffirmed the award of death sentence to both Shabnam and Salim for killing seven members of the woman’s family.
However, the jail superintendent returned the death warrant as it was “defective” and did not mention the “date and time” of execution of the death warrant.
The apex court on May 15, while upholding the death sentence of Shabnam and Salim, said that the “couple indulged in such debased act of multiple murders driven by infatuation and exhibited no remorse”.
It held that “the accused persons’ preparedness, active involvement, scheming execution and subsequent conduct reeks of calculated and motivated murders”.
“The act of slaughtering a 10-month-old child by strangulation in no chance reflects immature action but evidence for the lack of remorse, kindness and humanity.”
It said the crime was committed “in the most cruel and inhuman manner which is extremely brutal, grotesque, diabolical and revolting”.
The “instant case requires us to award a punishment that is graduated and proportioned to the crime… we have reached the inescapable conclusion that the extreme culpability of both the appellants-accused (Shabnam and Salim) makes them the most deserving for death penalty”, it added.