"A great relief" is how lawyer Farhana Shah, who defended maximum number of accused in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, summarised her reaction after the Supreme Court commuted the death sentence of 10 out of 12 convicts to life sentence.
The lawyer of Indian death row prisoner Sarabjit Singh has highlighted flaws in his trial for alleged involvement in a string of bombings in 1990 and demanded that the Pakistan government commute his death sentence to life imprisonment.
A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice P S Narasimha, while granting them the relief took note of the time they have already served and the unlikelihood of their appeals being taken up for disposal anytime soon.
The five Indian fishermen, who were sentenced to death on charges of drug trafficking, have been released by the Sri Lankan authorities.
India on Wednesday asked its acting high commissioner in Islamabad to seek a meeting with the Pakistan foreign office in connection with the death of an Indian under mysterious circumstances in a jail there.
The court then issued a notice to the state government on the bail pleas of Abdul Raheman Dhantia alias Kankatto, Abdul Sattar Ibrahim Gaddi Asla and others.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the release of A G Perarivalan, who has served over 30 years of life term in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
There is a congruence of interests between Ukrainian intelligence and its Western mentors to destroy Wagner and eliminate it from the geopolitical chessboard altogether, argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The heart and stomach were missing as they had been taken out during the first autopsy conducted at Jinnah Hospital in Lahore.
Perarivalan is being treated at the prison hospital, police said.
Making the announcement, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told Parliament that the Interior Ministry will be asked to 'move a summary to President Pervez Musharraf to commute the sentence of those on death row to life imprisonment'. Under Pakistan Constitution, the President has powers to commute sentences.
The Centre on Tuesday opposed in the Supreme Court the plea of convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case seeking the commutation of their death sentences to life imprisonment.
Burney, who is a member of the Advisory Committee of the UN Human Rights Council, said that 'with so many facts in favour of Sarabjit and so little to justify the death sentence awarded to him, it seemed Sarabjit's biggest crime may have been his Indian nationality as no unbiased court would ever sentence a man to death in such a weak case'.
In a first of its kind verdict, the Supreme Court has declared as "illegal" rejection of mercy petition of death row convict M N Das by the then President Pratibha Patil and commuted the sentence to life imprisonment on ground of 12 year delay in deciding his plea.
The two were charged with rape and murder and sentenced to death by a lower court in the killings in Nithari, Noida, that horrified the nation with the details of sexual assault, brutal murder and hints of possible cannibalism.
Sarabjit Singh's mercy plea, requesting that his death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment, has been forwarded to Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari. The plea was moved after the Supreme Court rejected Singh's petition challenging the death sentence awarded to him earlier.Sarabjit, who is currently languishing in the Kot Lakhpat jail, is a resident of Amritsar. He was arrested near the Kasur border in Pakistan in August 1990.
On Monday, prosecution had sought death penalty for all the 24 people convicted for the gruesome killings.
The fate of three death row convicts in Rajiv Gandhi assassination case will be sealed on Tuesday when the Supreme Court will pronounce its verdict on their plea for commutation of their sentence to life imprisonment on ground of delay in deciding their mercy plea.
Pataliya was arrested by the Godhra Police in January 2018, nearly 16 years after being booked in connection with the incident in which 59 'karsevaks' were burnt alive in two coaches of the Sabarmati Express.
The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the conviction of Communist Party-Marxist activist A Pradeepan for the murder of a Kerala school teacher Jayakrishnan in front of students, but commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment.
A G Perarivalan alias Arivu is now a free man following a legal battle, and that long fight provides scope for throwback moments of Tamil sentiment that propelled the struggle which was backed by most political parties and successive governments in Tamil Nadu.
On May 24, 2022, a trial court in the national capital had awarded life imprisonment to Malik, the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief, after holding him guilty of various offences under the stringent anti-terror law-Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA)-- and the Indian Penal Code.
The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed condemned prisoner and Khalistan Liberation Force terrorist Devinderpal Singh Bhullar's plea for commutation of his death sentence to life imprisonment on ground of delay in deciding his mercy plea.
President Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday rejected the mercy petitions of four associates of sandalwood smuggler Veerappan -- Gnanaprakasham, Simon, Meeskar and Bilavendran.
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a plea moved by former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's assassin Nalini Sriharan seeking early release from prison.
'The cases on hand have no genesis in the act of terrorism or waging war against the state,' the court said.
Elated over the Supreme Court commuting to life term the death penalty given to her son in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, the mother of convict A G Perarivalan on Tuesday thanked Chief Justice A P Sathasivam for the "historic" verdict.
A division bench of Justices Bharati Dangre and Manjusha Deshpande warned that it would impose costs on the authorities for denying parole only on the ground that Baig had been convicted of terror charges.
The sole convict in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack case, Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab, on Tuesday pleaded with the Supreme Court to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment.
The Supreme Court Monday extended by a week the parole of A G Perarivalan, serving life sentence in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, for undergoing medical check-up.
The Supreme Court will resume the hearing of 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts convict Yakub Memon's mercy petition on Tuesday morning.
A chronology of events in the case in which the main trial ended in 2007.
'Prime Minister Narendra Modi had given a commitment to the Sikh community on the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev in 2019 that the sentence of all Sikh detainees serving life sentences would be commuted and that the death sentence of Bhai Rajoana would be commuted to life.'
Strongly reacting to the recent Supreme Court judgement which commuted death penalty of the convict, who brutally raped a 23-year-old pregnant woman and killed her mother-in-law in a case in Pune in 2007, the victim's family on Sunday said the perpetrator of the crime had "no right to live".
The mercy petitions of three convicts -- Mukesh, Vinay and Akshay -- have already been dismissed by the President.
The Centre on Thursday moved the Supreme Court, seeking a review of its judgment commuting the death sentence to life imprisonment of three convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, on the ground of delay in deciding their mercy plea.
The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed the bail pleas of three convicts serving life term in the 2002 Godhra train burning case, which plunged Gujarat into one of the worst communal riots, terming it a "very serious incident".
India on Thursday said it remains committed to take forward its development agenda with the Maldives, including implementation of various welfare projects in the island nation.
Yakub Abdul Razak Memon, brother of absconding accused Tiger Memon, is the sole convict who was awarded death sentence by the Supreme Court in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case that had claimed 257 lives and left 713 injured.
"I have already assigned the bench. The file had come to me. It will come up on Monday," said Chief Justice of India H L Dattu.
