INDIA: SC REJECTS DEVINDER BHULLAR'S PLEA, UPHOLDS DEATH IN 1993 BLAST CASE

The Supreme Court in India rejected the mercy petition of Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, who had sought commutation of his death penalty to life sentence on the ground that there was inordinate delay by the President over his plea for clemency. The court said that delay cannot be a ground for commuting death sentence to a life term. Bhullar was sentenced to death in 2003 for carrying out a bomb blast outside the Delhi Youth Congress office in 1993 that left nine people dead.
The court observed that the petitioner could not make out a case for commuting his death penalty. "The Supreme Court should have considered our plea," Bhullar's wife said reacting to the verdict.
Bhullar had also sought mercy on grounds that he has been mentally unfit for the past 11 years.
"If someone is mentally sick that person cannot be executed, we will have to go through the judgement," lawyer Majid Memon said.
Bhullar had approached the Supreme Court in 2011, saying that his death sentence should be commuted to life imprisonment, because there was an inordinate delay by the President over his plea for clemency. His mercy petition was pending for 8 years.
Bhullar had filed his original mercy plea to commute the sentence to life imprisonment in 2003. It was rejected in 2011, a week after he approached the Supreme Court.
The apex court's verdict paves way for the execution of others on death row like the Rajiv Gandhi assassination convicts.