IMPORTANT POINTS
Inordinate and unreasonable delay in disposal of mercy petitions resulting in inordinate delay in execution is supervening circumstance warranting commutation of death sentence.

JUDGMENT :

P.Sathasivam, CJI. –

1. The above transferred cases which were borne out of the writ petitions filed by V. Sriharan @ Murugan, T. Suthendraraja @ Santhan and A.G. Perarivalan @ Arivu in the Madras High Court and which got transferred to this Court under Article 139A of the Constitution of India raise vital issues pertaining to violation of fundamental rights of death row convicts ensuing from inordinate delay caused at the hands of executive in deciding the mercy petitions filed under Article 72/161 of the Constitution. In all the writ petitions, the petitioners prayed for a writ of declaration declaring that the execution of the sentence of death, pursuant to the letter No. F.No.14/1/1999-Judicial Cell dated 12.08.2011 issued by the Union of India, is unconstitutional and thus sought for commutation of the sentence of death to imprisonment for life.

2. Akin to this issue was decided by us in a recent judgment viz., Shatrughan Chauhan & Anr. vs. Union of India & Ors. [Writ Petition(Criminal) No. 55 of 2013 etc.] decided on 21.01.2014 wherein this Court held that execution of sentence of death on the accused notwithstanding the existence of supervening circumstances, is in violation of Article 21 of the Constitution. One of the supervening circumstances sanctioned by this Court for commutation of death sentence into life imprisonment is the undue, inordinate and unreasonable delay in execution of death sentence as it attributes to torture.

However, this Court, cogently clarified in its verdict that the nature of delay i.e. whether it is undue or unreasonable must be appreciated based on facts of individual cases and no exhaustive guidelines can be framed in this regard. The relevant portion of Shatrughan Chauhan (supra), is as under:-

"42) Accordingly, if there is undue, unexplained and inordinate delay in execution due to pendency of mercy petitions or the executive as well as the constitutional authorities have failed to take note of/consider the relevant aspects, this Court is well within its powers under Article 32 to hear the grievance of the convict and commute the death sentence into life imprisonment on this ground alone however, only after satisfying that the delay was not caused at the instance of the accused himself...

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54) ... Therefore, in the light of the aforesaid elaborate discussion, we are of the cogent view that undue, inordinate and unreasonable delay in execution of death sentence does certainly attribute to torture which indeed is in violation of Article 21 and thereby entails as the ground for commutation of sentence. However, the nature of delay i.e. whether it is undue or unreasonable must be appreciated based on the facts of individual cases and no exhaustive guidelines can be framed in this regard."

3. Accordingly, the case at hand has to be decided under the guidance of this judgment. The two principles stipulated in the judgment for commutation of death sentence into life imprisonment on the ground of delay as the supervening circumstance are firstly, that the delay occurred must be inordinate and secondly, that the delay must not be caused at the instance of the accused. Let us assess the facts of the given case in the light of established principles in Shatrughan Chauhan (supra).Factual Background:

4. In these petitions, we are concerned only with the rejection of the mercy petitions of the petitioners by the President of India under Article72 of the Constitution after the confirmation of death sentence by this Court, thus there is no need to traverse the factual details leading up to the imposition of death sentence.

5. Initially, the mercy petitions were filed before the Governor of Tamil Nadu on 17.10.1999 and the Governor, on 27.10.1999, rejected the same. Subsequently, the said rejection was challenged before the Madras High Court in W.P. Nos. 17655-17658 of 1999 on the ground that the mercy petitions were decided without consulting the Council of Ministers, which is unsustai