Media Reports

8 convicts denied mercy by President get SC stay on hanging

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NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Saturday late evening stayed for four weeks the execution of 8 persons, including condemned woman prisoner Sonia, whose mercy pleas had been rejected by President Pranab Mukherjee.

A bench of Justices P Sathasivam and M Y Eqbal stayed the execution of the eight - Sonia and her husband Sanjeev, Gurmeet Singh, Praveen Kumar, Sunder Singh, Jafar Ali, Suresh and Ramji - on a petition filed by "People's Union for Democratic Rights", civil rights group.

In the late evening hearing at Justice Sathasivam's residence, senior advocate Colin Gonsalves gave the instance the stay of execution of four aides of sandalwood smuggler Veerappan granted by a bench of Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir on February 18.He cited the delay in carrying out the death sentence after the Supreme Court had confirmed them, as the main ground for staying the executions.

Gonsalves said the delay in all these cases ranged from 3 to 12 years. The apex court has already reserved judgment in the case of Devender Pal Singh Bhullar, who had cited a delay of 11 years in adjudicating his mercy plea by President as a ground for seeking commutation of death penalty to life imprisonment.

'Shouldn't repeat mistakes that happened in Afzal case'

During the hearing, the bench of Justices Sathasivam and Eqbal said it was also entertaining the petition on the additional ground to ascertain whether proper communication had been sent to the relatives of these condemned prisoners whose mercy pleas have been rejected.

SC stays execution of 4 Veerappan aides, for now

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday stayed till further orders the execution of death sentence of four aides of sandalwood smuggler Veerappan, who were awarded capital punishment in 2004 for a landmine blast in Karnataka that left 22 police personnel dead.

The bench posted the matter for Wednesday.

"In the meantime, the execution of death sentence of four convicts shall remain stayed," a bench comprising Chief Justice Altamas Kabir and justices A R Dave and Vikramajit Sen said. "Let the writ petition be heard day after tomorrow," it said.

The petition on behalf of the four convicts was filed by advocate Samik Narain, who was given the liberty to amend and rectify it after objections were raised on its maintainability by Attorney General G E Vahanvati who was asked to assist the court.

Vahanvati questioned the maintainability of the petition on technical grounds and said the copy of the petition was neither given to the Centre nor to the Karnataka government till this morning.

Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, appearing for the petitioners, sought liberty from the bench to form a proper petition in a day or two.

During the brief hearing, the court said if it will issue notice, it will have to hear the matter entirely.

Further, the Chief Justice said there are two options-- either this bench will have to hear the matter or it will have to refer to the bench which has been seized with the issue of mercy petition.

The bench said hearing this matter may also have a bearing on the petitions filed by the death row convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case against the rejection of their mercy petition.

On February 16, the apex court had refused to give an urgent hearing on the four convicts' plea seeking stay of execution of their death penalty on the ground that there was no proof that the hanging was to take place yesterday i.e February 17.

Gonsalves had said they had approached the apex court after getting information that the execution of death penalty was scheduled for February 17.

Colin Gonsalves: When India had 1,500 fast track courts

While the Chief Justice of India inaugurated a Fast Track Court (FTC) at Delhi and exhorted the High Courts to act likewise, a Bench of the Supreme Court, in Brij Mohan Lal vs Union of India and Others, 2005, allowed the Central and State governments to close down over 1,500 FTCs on the ground that funds were not available.

FTCs were started by the Central government pursuant to the observations of the First National Judicial Pay Commission, 1999, the 120th Report of the Law Commission on Manpower Planning in the judiciary, the report on Crime in India published by the National Crime Records Bureau and the lamentations of every Chief Justice of India who used the Law Day address to highlight the mounting arrears and the paucity of funds available to the judiciary.

India has about 11 judicial officers per million population as compared to Australia’s 42 and Canada’s 75 ; the United Kingdom has 51 and the United States has 107 per million population. To deal with the current volume of litigation and eliminate arrears, India needs to appoint five times the present strength of judges. The Central and State governments, however, treat the judiciary as a pariah and pretend not to understand how important this institution is for the survival of democracy itself.

Gonsalves fights for justice for the poor and downtrodden

Humanitarian believes juveniles should have a speedy trial and should be rehabilitated

New Delhi: Colin Gonsalves is the founder director of Human Rights Law Network (HRLN), considered the country’s leading public interest law group. A pioneer in the field of public interest litigation in India, he has successfully fought number of cases for the poor and helpless and set precedents.

Having commenced legal studies in 1979, he litigated his first case while still at law school. This was on behalf of 5,000 workers who were locked out of their jobs. Empathizing with the needy, over the years, he has brought together scores of lawyers to help out the poor without any remuneration.

Gonsalves transitioned his practice from the Labour Courts to the Bombay High Court in 1984 and was designated as Senior Advocate before moving onto the Supreme Court in 2001. Among his most famous cases is the ‘Right To Food’, which involved one of the greatest expansions of Constitutional Rights of the citizens.

HRLN has been working in various fields including, children’s rights, women’s justice, anti-trafficking, criminal justice and prisoners’ rights.

In 2005, Gonsalves was presented the International Human Rights Award by the American Bar Association. In 2010, he was conferred a Doctorate of the University, honoris causa, by the University of Middlesex, UK. And in the same year, he also received the Mother Teresa Memorial Award for social justice.

He speaks to Gulf News in an exclusive interview.

Uncontrolled clinical trials creating havoc in country: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday said uncontrolled clinical trial of untested drugs on people is creating havoc in the country. All clinical trials of new drugs should be done under the supervision of Health Secretary, the SC says in interim order.

Strongly recommending that such trials of drugs be stayed, SC slammed the Centre for not controlling the menace of illegal clinical trials.