In a major relief to three condemned prisoners in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, the Supreme Court on Tuesday commuted their death sentence to life imprisonment on the ground of 11 years delay in deciding their mercy plea by the Centre.
"It happens. It's part of our lives," retired Indian Navy commander B K Verma who has returned from Qatar says with stoicism while talking about his daughter's wedding that he could not attend.
The Special Court, hearing the 1998 serial bomb blasts case, awarded life imprisonment to three more convicts on Friday. The court also sentenced two convicts to 13 years rigorous imprisonment, thereby concluding the sentencing of all convicts. Special Judge K Uthirapathy also discharged approver Riyas-ur-Rahman from the case. However, he would not be set free as he is involved in three other cases, including the Classic Tower bomb planting case.
The Apex court bench of Chief Justice P Sathasivam, Justice RM Lodha, Justice HL Dattu and Justice SJ Mukhopadyaya, while commuting the death sentence to life imprisonment, referred to its January 21, 2014 verdict which said that inordinate, unexplained or unreasonable delay in deciding mercy petition was dehumanizing to death row convict and was a ground for commuting death sentence to life imprisonment.
The case was originally registered by the Bengaluru City Police on July 18 last year following the seizure of arms and ammunition, hand grenades and walkie-talkies from seven of the accused persons. The seizure was made when the seven men were in the house of one of the accused.
A Belgian national was sentenced to life in prison for murdering an Indian man before dumping his body in a trash bin in Sydney, a newspaper reported on Saturday.\n\n
'Every report I filed for Rediff.com on the professor's incarceration, would leave me wondering for days, at the depth of the State's malevolence towards this disabled professor, and his equally deep capacity to tolerate it,' recalls Jyoti Punwani.' 'No country in the world would do what our country was doing to someone so helpless.'
Indian National Lok Dal president and five-time Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala died in Gurugram on Friday at the age of 89.
They had killed 14 Muslims in Ghodasar village on March 3, 2002 during the post-Godhra communal riots.
'I apologised because sentiments were hurt.'
Refusing to accept the tribunal's decision, the families said they would take the matter to a higher court, seeking justice for their sons and hoping to unmask the truth behind the fateful encounter.
Hashmi murder: Nine sentenced to life imprisonment.
After being sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, Trump started his inaugural address with a sentence that echoed Modi's coinage some years ago, notes Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Eight persons were sentenced to life while three others were awarded three years imprisonment by a Godhra court in the 2002 Eral massacre case that left seven people dead in the aftermath of the Godhra riots.
A local court on Monday sentenced Sajjad Mogul, who was convicted for killing 25-year-old city-based lawyer Pallavi Purkayastha in 2012, to life imprisonment.
Swamy Premananda of Tiruchirapally, Tamil Nadu, was accused of raping 13 women and murdering a person in his ashram.
The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the Central Bureau of Investigation's plea for death penalty to Dara Singh, convicted for burning to death Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons.
Upholding a lower court order, the Kerala high court sentenced prime accused Dharmarajan to life imprisonment, while acquitting seven others in the sensational Suriyanelli rape case.
The Supreme Court on Friday directed the premature release of six convicts, including Nalini Sriharan and R P Ravichandran, serving life term in the assassination case of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, noting that the Tamil Nadu government has recommended remission of their sentence.
During his temporary release period, Singh will go to the Dera ashram in Barnawa in Uttar Pradesh's Baghpat, they further said.
Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma said a convict does not become a lesser citizen only due to his incarceration and, in the present case, where the "biological clock" of the convict and his partner may become a barrier for them to conceive once the sentence got over, the fundamental right to have a child "cannot be deemed to be surrendered in favour of the State".
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.
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.
He was sentenced for being in possession of RDX, a detonator and a pistol.
A man from Tripura's Sepahijala district returned home after spending 37 years in Bangladesh jails.
The 11 convicts are Bakabhai Vohania, Bipin Chandra Joshi, Kesarbhai Vohania, Govind Nai, Jaswant Nai, Mitesh Bhatt, Pradeep Mordhiya, Radheshyam Shah, Rajubhai Soni, Ramesh Chandana and Shailesh Bhatt.
A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Pankaj Mithal, which set aside the order of conviction and life sentence to two accused in a murder case, said it is surprising that both the trial court and the high court overlooked the critical aspect of tutoring of the witnesses in the case.
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".
The lawyer of the accused in an earlier hearing had denied the charge of premeditated murdered and said his client was "too drunk" to know what he was doing.
"Inordinate delay" in deciding Koli's mercy plea led to the HC verdict.
The apex court in May agreed to hear a plea filed by the father of one of the victims challenging the high court's order acquitting Koli in the case.
A local court in Ghaziabad on Monday sentenced terror convict Waliullah Khan to death for the serial blasts in Varanasi that killed at least 20 people 16 years back.
The Delhi high court on Monday issued a notice to separatist leader Yasin Malik, who is currently serving a life term, on a plea by the National Investigation Agency seeking death penalty for him in a terror funding case.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday commuted to life imprisonment the death sentence awarded to murder convict M N Das, whose mercy petition was rejected by then President Pratibha Patil. A bench headed by Justice G S Singhvi allowed the plea of Das who had approached the apex court for commutation of his death sentence on the ground that the President had taken eleven years to decide his mercy plea.
The Bombay high court on Monday acquitted five accused in the 2002 Best Bakery riots case for want of evidence but upheld the conviction of four others sentenced to life term by the trial court.
On August 18, the apex court convicted Singh in the case, overturning the orders of the trial court and the Patna high court that had acquitted him.
Sharma, son of former Union minister Venod Sharma, was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by the Delhi high court in December 2006 for killing Jessica Lal in 1999.
Khan was convicted in the Toshakhana case which was filed last year on the complaint of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) which had earlier disqualified him in the same case.
A Russian court sentenced US basketball star Brittney Griner to nine years in prison on Thursday after finding her guilty of deliberately bringing cannabis-infused vape cartridges into Russia, a ruling that President Joe Biden called "unacceptable."
Months after a 17 year-old-girl was gang-raped in a moving car in Surat, a district court today sentenced three youths, including two who are sons of policemen, to life imprisonment in the case that sent shock waves across the country.
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