INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
NEW DELHI: In what will do away with judicial review of decisions taken by the President on mercy petitions of death row convicts, the
Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita Bill (BNSS) 2023 seeks to bar appeals against any order made by the President in exercise of the power to
grant pardon or commute a death sentence under Article 72 of the Constitution
President made under Article 72 of the Constitution and it shall be final, and any question as to the arriving of the decision by the
Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).The provision has wide ramifications since it may rob death row convicts of one last judicial remedy, or
With the Supreme Court having ruled in the past that the exercise of prerogative powers like clemency and pardons by the President or the
prisoners have been approaching the courts against rejection of their mercy pleas
even led to commutation of the death sentence.The exercise of this eleventh-hour judicial remedy was marked by high drama in some
high-profile death row cases, like at the time of the graveyard shift hearings by the SC hours prior to execution of death warrants of 1991
Mumbai blasts convict Yakub Memon in 2015 and the four Nirbhaya case convicts in 2020
Even though the SC refused to stay the executions in both instances, the extraordinary hearings were seen by death row critics and rights
some others as bordering on judicial activism
The extra layer of judicial remedy, it was felt, was more like a clever tactic to delay execution of the death sentence already upheld by
the highest court.Section 473 of the BNSS Bill also seeks to rule out delays on account of separate pleas filed by multiple death row
convicts in the same case
In the Nirbhaya case, the four convicts had filed their mercy pleas at separate times, forcing a delay until the last plea was rejected
The bill proposes that the jail superintendent shall ensure that every convict, in case there are more than one convict in a case, also make
the mercy plea within 60 days, and where no such petition is received from the other convicts, he shall himself send the names, addresses,
copy of the case record and all other details to the central or state government along with the original mercy petition
The President shall decide the petitions of all convicts together.Apart from specifying time-limits for filing mercy pleas in death row
cases with the governor (Article 161) and the President (Article 72), Section 473 of BNSS Bill seeks to give the central government 60 days
to be communicated by the Centre to the state home department and jail superintendent within 48 hours of disposal
However, despite a guideline by the SC in its 2014 order in the Shatrughan Chauhan case, no 14-day gap between the rejection of mercy plea
by the President and the date of execution has been outlined in Section 473 of BNSS Bill.
