Delhi blast convict Devinderpal Singh Bhullar's wife on Tuesday approached the Supreme Court, seeking a stay on the execution of his death sentence, till her review plea against its verdict is decided.
She submitted in her plea that she has filed a review petition against the Supreme Court verdict of April 12, in which the court had rejected her petition to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment, on the ground of delay on the part of the government in deciding his mercy plea.
Khalistan Liberation Force terrorist Bhullar was convicted and awarded the death penalty for triggering a bomb blast in Delhi in September 1993, killing nine people and injuring 25 others, including then Youth Congress president M S Bitta.
The apex court had on March 26, 2002 dismissed Bhullar's appeal against the death sentence awarded by a trial court in August 2001 and endorsed by the Delhi high court in 2002.
He had filed a review petition which was also dismissed on December 17, 2002. Bhullar had then moved a curative petition which had been rejected by the apex court on March 12, 2003.
Bhullar, meanwhile, had filed a mercy petition before the President on January 14, 2003. The President, after a lapse of over eight years, dismissed his mercy plea on May 25, 2011.
Citing his delay, he had again moved the apex court for commutation of the death sentence, but his plea was rejected.
The apex court had on May 1 commuted the death sentence awarded to murder convict M N Das, whose mercy petition was rejected by then President Pratibha Patil.
The court had allowed the plea of Das, who had approached it for commutation of his death sentence, on the ground that the President had taken twelve years to decide his mercy plea.
