JUDGMENT :

Nitin Jamdar, J.

1. Rule. Rule is made returnable forthwith. Taken up for final disposal.

2. The Petitioners are sentenced to death. After seven years, ten months and 15 days, their mercy petitions were rejected. Petitioners pray that the delay in disposal of the mercy petitions having resulted in infringement of Petitioners fundamental rights, the death sentence be commuted to that of life imprisonment.

3. The Petitioners, Renuka alias Rinku alias Ratan alias Kiran Shinde and Seema alias Devki Gavit, are sisters. Petitioners and their mother - Anjanabai, were tried by the learned Additional Sessions Judge Kolhapur in Sessions Cases Nos. 55 and 56 of 1997 for having kidnapped 13 children, attempting to kidnap one more child and committing murders of 9 of the 13 children kidnapped by them in a period starting from June 1990 to October 1996. The learned Sessions Judge convicted them on 28 June 2001, and the Petitioners were sentenced to death. Reference of Confirmation Case No.2 of 2001 was made, and Criminal Appeal No. 718 of 2001 was filed by the Petitioners in the High Court. Anjanabai expired while in custody. The Division Bench of this Court, by the judgment and order dat