Category: Litigation

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Litigation

Supervening circumstances and the commutation of a death sentence: A more definitive law from the Supreme Court

ProceduralLawOfTheDeathPenalty_RahulRamanIf the situation that prevailed at the time a sentence of death was delivered has changed, can the Supreme Court take those changed circumstances into account to commute a sentence of death? Less than two years ago, the Supreme Court in Shatrughan Chauhan v. Union of India, 2014 (3) SCC 1, looked into whether executing a death sentence notwithstanding the existence of such supervening circumstances would violate among other things, Article 21 of the Constitution. After weighing such circumstances in different petitions, it commuted the penalty of fifteen individuals to life imprisonment and laid down a more definitive law on the Court’s power of commutation.

The petitioners had claimed that the executive, while exercising its power under Articles 72 or 161, did not consider any supervening events. In a few previous decisions such as Triveniben (1989) and Jagdish v. State of Madhya Pradesh (2009), the Court had declared that it had a duty to protect a prisoner’s right to life till his last breath. This provided the Supreme Court with the legal basis to take supervening circumstances into consideration and those pleaded in Shatrughan Chauhan included delay, insanity, solitary confinement, and procedural lapses.

Delay in processing mercy petitions

The question of whether the executive’s delay in processing a mercy petition should be considered a supervening circumstance has troubled the Court for a long time. There is no stipulated time limit within which the executive has to dispose a mercy petition and often, there is inordinate delay.

Earlier, a division bench of the Supreme Court in T.V. Vatheeswaran v. State of Tamil Nadu, AIR 1983 SC 361, had held that a delay of two years in execution of a sentence after the judgment of the trial court would entitle the prisoner to plead for commutation of his sentence of death to life imprisonment. Soon after however, a three-judge bench in Sher Singh and Others v. Union of India, AIR 1983 SC 465, held that delay alone could not be a good enough ground for commutation of death sentence, and overruled the two-year delay rule. Nevertheless, this decision acknowledged a prisoner’s right to a fair procedure at all stages – trial, sentencing, and incarceration.

To resolve this apparent conflict, a constitution bench took up this issue in Triveniben v. State of Gujrat, 1988 (4) SCC 574. In a landmark verdict, the Court held that while an undue delay would entitle a punished individual to invoke Article 32, Vatheeswaran’s “two-year delay rule” was not correct.

The Court relied on this decision in Shatrughan Chauhan. It held that while considering the rejection of a clemency petition, the Court could not overlook the pain caused to the convict. Therefore, the Court was well within its judicial power under Article 21 read with Article 32 of the Constitution to hear a convict’s grievance and commute a death sentence to life imprisonment if it is found that that there had been undue, unexplained, and inordinate delay in execution due to the pendency of a mercy petition.

The Court decided not to lay down any compulsory period within which the President has to decide a mercy petition. While the Court would make such a determination on the facts and circumstances of individual cases, it suggested that the executive should itself weigh the aspect of delay while disposing of a mercy petition.

The Court also said that the decision of the Court in Devender Pal Singh Bhullar v. State (NCT) of Delhi, 2013 (6) SCC 195, which had disqualified cases under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, 1987 from scrutiny on account of delay, was per incuriam. Any person sentenced to death could avail “delay” as a supervening circumstance regardless of the offence and the statute under which he has been convicted. Later, the Supreme Court recognised this finding in Navneet Kaur v. State of NCT of Delhi, Curative Petition (Criminal) No. 88 of 2013 (Supreme Court) to commute Devender Pal Singh Bhullar’s death sentence to life imprisonment.

Insanity or mental illness

The next ground considered by the Court was that of “insanity” or “mental illness” as a supervening circumstance. The Court after referring to several international conventions like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights concluded that this was a valid supervening circumstance. It noted that once mental illness of the convicted individual is medically certified, executing him would be in violation of the international convention to which India was a party, and of Article 21 of the Constitution.

Solitary confinement

Despite underlining its own finding in Sunil Batra v. Delhi Administration and Others, 1978(4) SCC 494, the Supreme Court decided not to interfere on the ground of “solitary confinement” in Shatrughan Chauhan. Later however, the Allahabad High Court in People’s Union for Democratic Rights v. Union of India, 2015(2) ADJ 2015 and the Supreme Court in Ajay Kumar Pal v. Union of India, 2014(13) SCALE 762 held that “solitary confinement”, along with other factors, was a permissible supervening circumstance to commute death sentence to life imprisonment.

Procedural lapses

The final ground raised was that of “procedural lapses” made by the executive while disposing of mercy petitions. The Court held that the procedures prescribed for the Ministry of Home Affairs were a necessary requirement under Article 21 to treat the death row convicts fairly. It noted that the President should be provided with all the relevant material to assist him in disposing the mercy petitions. The concerned departments cannot give or seek piecemeal information regarding the petition to be decided. However, the scrutiny of a procedural anomaly would be done on a case-to-case basis.

The circumstances raised in Shatrughan Chauhan are not exhaustive. The addition (or removal) of supervening circumstances to this list would depend on the judicial attitudes to reconciling convict’s rights with those of the victim or the society. Further, despite the unambiguous decisions in Triveniben and Shatrughan Chauhan, it is entirely up to the Court to see on an individual basis, how to interpret ‘undue and unexplained’ delay and whether to permit it as a supervening circumstance.

(Rahul Raman is a Project Associate at the Centre on the Death Penalty, National Law University, Delhi.)

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Litigation Lounge

Sabarimala temple-entry controversy: Explained by myLaw

What is the #Sabarimala temple entry controversy all about? What are the legal and constitutional complications? Which fundamental rights are in conflict here? And how do we decide whose rights should prevail? We explored all these questions to give you a clearer picture. Watch below and don’t forget to let us know what you think.

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Litigation Skills

What to tell your clients and when – Learn the essential litigation skill of communicating with clients

An advocate’s career is not all about communicating an argument effectively with a judge or assisting a senior colleague. Building lasting relationships with clients is almost equally important. Since legal education, unfortunately, provides very little help in navigating this part of an advocate’s professional life, we asked a few experienced advocates whether they had any advice for young advocates who are commencing their professional journey. This is what they had to say.

 

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Litigation Skills

Get better at drafting for a career in litigation

At the beginning of a career in litigation, good drafting is one of the few things that junior advocates can do to earn the respect of peers and seniors. Is there a method to drafting well? How does one get better at drafting pleadings? We put these questions to a few experienced Delhi-based lawyers. You can listen to what they had to say, in the video below.

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Litigation Skills

Know all available interim reliefs but be smart about using them

JSaiDeepak_OnTrialIn my previous post here, I discussed a few important terms from the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (“CPC”). That discussion alone illustrates that mechanical compliance with procedural law is not enough. Even though they are regularly described as the handmaidens of justice, procedural legislations are also statutes to which rules of statutory interpretation apply. If you are still not convinced, just talk to some colleagues about some of the most basic terms and clauses in the CPC and you will see for yourself the varied and equally plausible interpretations they can give rise to. Imagine how much trouble the creative interpretation of procedure can cause!

Let us take the case of interim applications. These are applications filed as an adjunct to the primary suit proceeding and may result in interlocutory orders, dismissals of suits, or decrees. If you represent the plaintiff, you will file along with the suit, a host of interim applications — starting from the seemingly mundane applications under Order 13 of the CPC seeking exemption from filing original documents to the important ones seeking urgent ex parte interim reliefs under Order 39 pending disposal of the suit. If you represent the defendant, you will move applications along with your written statement objecting most frequently to the maintainability of the suit on the procedural and substantive grounds under Order 7, Rules 10 and 11. Clearly, while interim applications are expected in theory to proceed in parallel to the suit, more often than not they interfere with the progress of the suit and vice versa.

More interim reliefs in the CPC, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy

Because of practice and convention, a few interim applications are invoked more often than others. But lawyers cannot afford to limit their knowledge to provisions that they frequently encounter. In fact, what better way to impress a court than to invoke a less-trod procedural provision and to explain to the court the manner in which it should be construed and applied? For instance, when sued by a foreign party that has no immovable property in India, it might help to test waters by drawing the court’s attention to Order 25 of the CPC to require the plaintiff to deposit security in court. This will help you understand the plaintiff’s will to fight to the finish since an order for depositing security casts an additional financial burden on the plaintiff besides the court fee and legal costs it has already incurred.

Another example is Order 13-A of the CPC, introduced recently through the Commercial Courts Act, 2015. It allows a defendant to seek a summary judgment in any commercial dispute if it is able to convince the court that the plaintiff is unlikely to succeed at trial and therefore no need for a protracted conventional trial. The Commercial Courts Act, 2015 is replete with such opportunities because it is designed to reduce frivolous litigation and expedite genuine litigation.

Know when to press a procedural button

That said, it is also important to appreciate the distinction between the theoretical availability of a procedural option at any stage and the appropriateness of invoking it from a strategic perspective. For instance, interrogatories under Order 11 of the CPC allow a party to put factual questions or questions relating to documents with a view to elicit answers which are not evasive. While this mechanism has certain benefits on paper, it gives the other side a peek at the interrogating party’s potential strategy at trial, besides the obvious advantage of answering questions without being under the pressure of cross-examination. Similarly, while it may seem routine to lodge a caveat under Section 148A of the CPC with a view to pre-empt the grant of ex parte orders, it is important to consider how such a course of action may be perceived and the adverse inference that a court may draw. Once again, this is a question of strategy and a litigator has to strike a balance between knowledge of a provision and the advisability of its application.

Substantive legislations also provide for a host of interim applications addressing various aspects of the subject-matter they cover. For instance, on February 5, 2016, a full bench of the Delhi High Court delivered a decision on the application of Section 124 of the Trademarks Act, 1999 under which infringement suit proceedings can be stayed subject to the satisfaction of the conditions under the provision. This decision is being considered by a division bench in a batch of appeals where Section 124 has been commonly invoked. I happen to be arguing in one of the appeals and hopefully, shall be able to write on this issue once there is more clarity.

In the next post, I will discuss discovery proceedings.

J.Sai Deepak, an engineer-turned-litigator, is an Associate Partner in the Litigation Team of NCR-based Saikrishna & Associates. Sai is @jsaideepak on Twitter and is the founder of the blawg “The Demanding Mistress” where he writes on economic laws, litigation and policy. All opinions expressed here are academic and personal.