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

The Supreme Court on Friday gave the Centre six more weeks to decide on a mercy plea of Balwant Singh Rajoana, a death row convict. The Centre claimed the process has started and the President would soon take a decision.

The convict has been in jail for over 25 years in the case of assassination of then Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh.

A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian allowed further time as Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted the process and the President will decide on it. The court may await the President's decision. It sought a timeline but ended up adjourning the matter for six weeks upon request by Mehta.

The court had deferred hearing the matter many times on Centre's request. The government had been asked earlier to take a decision by January 26.

Mehta had sought time for taking a call in the matter but then said it would not be prudent to decide on mercy plea as it would have "some repercussions" given the present situation. He was alluding to farmers' protest from Punjab and Haryana.

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

53-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 Punjab Civil Secretariat leading to the death of then Punjab CM and 16 others in 1995. His hanging was stayed in 2012 by the then UPA government when a mercy petition was filed.

On December 4, 2020, the court had asked the Centre to inform within two weeks about status in the matter. The court had then noted 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 responded saying 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 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev Ji, proposing special remission and release of prisoners.

As many as eight Sikh prisoners were to be 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.