SC gives Centre 2 weeks to decide on mercy plea by convict in Beant Singh's assassination case

The Supreme Court on Friday gave the Centre, as a last chance, two weeks to decide on the death sentence of Balwant Singh Rajoana, a death row convict.

Rajoana is in jail for over 25 years after being convicted for the assassination of then Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh.

A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian rejected a plea by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta for three weeks' time.

Mehta sought further time for a decision. He said it would not be prudent to decide on a mercy plea as it would have "some repercussions" given the present situation. He was alluding to protests of farmers from Punjab and Haryana.

The court had earlier asked the Centre to take the decision on mercy plea before January 26.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the petitioner, had earlier pointed out that the mercy plea has been pending for the past eight years.

Fifty-three-year-old Rajoana was sentenced to death by a special CBI court in Chandigarh on August 1, 2007, for his involvement in an explosion outside the Punjab Civil Secretariat leading to the killing of the Punjab CM and 16 others in 1995. His hanging was stayed in 2012 by the then UPA government on the filing of a mercy petition.

On December 4, 2020, the court had asked the Centre to inform within two weeks about the status of the matter.

The court had then noted that the petitioner has himself not filed any appeal against his sentence.

It also said the pendency of the appeals at the behest of other co-accused would have no relevance to the proposal intended to be sent for consideration under Article 72 (power of President to grant pardon, reprieve, respite and remission) of the Constitution.

The Union government had then said that the proposal has not been sent in view of the pending appeals of the co-accused before the top court.

On September 27, 2019, the Ministry of Home Affairs, wrote to the Chief Secretary of Punjab, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka and Delhi that on the occasion of the commemoration of the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev Ji, special remission and release of prisoners has been proposed.

As many as eight Sikh prisoners were to given special remission under Article 161 of the Constitution and released from prison. However, the proposal for commutation of death sentence to life imprisonment of one prisoner was yet to be processed under Article 72 of the Constitution.