TMI Blog1983 (3) TMI 298X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... of the Penal Code and were sentenced to death by the learned Sessions Judge, Sangrur, on November 26, 1977. By a judgment dated July 18, 1978 the High Court of Punjab and Haryana reduced the sentence imposed upon Kuldip Singh to life imprisonment but upheld the sentence of death imposed upon the petitioners. The High Court also imposed a sentence of fine of ₹ 5000 on Kuldip Singh and a fine of ₹ 5000 on each of the petitioners. Special Leave Petition (Crl.) No. 1711 of 1978 which was filed by the petitioners against the judgment of the High Court was dismissed by this Court on March 5, 1979. The petitioners then filed a Writ Petition in this Court challenging the validity of section 302 of the Penal Code. That petition was dismissed on January 20, 1981. Review Petition No. 99 of 1981 filed by the petitioners against the dismissal of their S.L.P. was dismissed by this Court on March 27, 1981. The petitioners filed yet another petition under article 32 of the Constitution, this time challenging the validity of section 34 of the Penal Code. That petition was dismissed on August 24, 1981. After failing in these seemingly inexhaustible series of proceedings, the petitioners ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ra Khatoon (4) and Hoskot.(5) The judgment in Bhuvan Mohan Patnaik (6) and Prabhakar Pandurang Sangzgiri (7) have been relied upon to show that prisoners who are under a sentence of death and detenus are entitled to certain fundamental rights. In Piare Dusadh, (8) the Federal Court was considering appeals against the judgments of the High Courts of Allahabad, Madras, Nagpur and Patna, under the special Criminal Courts Ordinance II of 1942. In Case Nos. XLI and XLII, the High Court of Patna had confirmed the sentence of death passed on the appellants by the Special Judge. It was urged before the Federal Court that the death sentence imposed in those cases should be reduced to transportation for life on account of the time that had elapsed since the sentences were first pronounced. The Court observed: It is true that death sentences were imposed in these cases several months ago, that the appellants have been lying ever since under threat of execution, and that the long delay has been caused very largely by the time taken in proceedings over legal points in respect of the constitution of the courts before which they were tried and of the validity of the sentences themselves. W ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ver a year. It is thus clear that Piare Dusadh is not an authority for the proposition that if a certain number of years have passed since the imposition of a death sentence, that sentence must necessarily be commuted to life imprisonment. In Ediga Anamma(1) this Court was hearing an appeal against the sentence of death imposed upon the appellant. Finding that the appellant was a young woman of 24 who was flogged out of her husband's house by the father-in-law, this Court reduced her sentence to life imprisonment for a variety of factual reasons peculiar to the case, like her entanglement into a sex net, that she had a young boy to look after and so on. Speaking for the Court, Krishna Iyer, J. added: What may perhaps be an extrinsic factor but recognised by the Court as of humane significance in the sentencing context is the brooding horror of 'hanging' which has been haunting the prisoner in her condemned cell for over two years. The Sessions Judge pronounced the death penalty on December 31, 1971, and we are now in February 1974. This prolonged agony has ameliorative impact according to the rulings of this Court. Piare Dusadh was regarded by the Court as ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... val is placed upon a sentence of death, this Court has exercised its power to direct, ex debito justiciae, that though the sentence was justified when passed, its execution, in the circumstances of the case, is not justified by reason of the unduly long time which has elapsed since the confirmation of that sentence by this Court. Some of us dealing with this case have been parties to decisions directing, in appropriate cases, that the death sentence shall not be executed by reason of supervening circumstances. In Vatheeswaran, the prisoner was under the sentence of death for over eight years and was in the jail for two years before that. After the death sentence was pronounced upon him, he was kept in solitary confinement, contrary to this Court's ruling in Sunil Batra. These supervening considerations, inter alia, were unquestionably germane to the decision whether the death sentence should be allowed to be executed. The Court took them into account and commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. Like our learned Brethren, we too consider that the view expressed in this behalf by Lord Scarman and Lord Brightman in the Privy Council decision of Neol Riley (1) is, with res ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ding appeals, unanswered bids for commutation, possible changes in the law-may aggravate adjustment problems. A continuing and pressing concern is whether one will join the substantial minority who obtain a reprieve or will be counted among the to-be-dead. Uncertainty may make the dilemma of the death row inmate more complicated than simply choosing between maintaining hope or surrendering to despair. The condemned can afford neither alternative, but must nurture both a desire to live and an acceptance of imminent death. As revealed in the suffering of terminally ill patients, this is an extremely difficult task, one in which resources afforded by family or those within the institutional context may prove critical to the person's adjustment. The death row inmate must achieve equilibrium with few coping supports. In the process, he must somehow maintain his dignity and integrity (page 4) Death row is a prison within a prison, physically and socially isolated from the prison community and the outside world. Condemned prisoners live twenty-three and one-half hours alone in their cells... (page 47) The author proceeds to say: Some death row inmates, attuned to the bitter iro ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... on and finally, the execution of the sentence. In cases too numerous to mention, this Court has released undertrial prisoners who were held in jail for periods longer than the period to which they could be sentenced, if found guilty: this jurisdiction relates to pre-trial procedure. In Hussainara Khatoon (supra) and Champalal(1), speedy trial was held to be an integral part of the right conferred by Article 21: this jurisdiction relates to procedure during the trial. In Prabhakar Pandurang Sangzgiri, the Court upheld the right of a detenu, while in detention, to publish a book of scientific interest called 'Inside the Atom'; in Bhuvan Mohan Patnaik, it was held that prisoners had to be afforded reasonable human conveniences and that the live-wire mechanism fixed on prison-walls in pursuance of administrative instructions could not be justified as reasonable if it violated the fundamental rights of the prisoners; in Sunil Batra, solitary confinement and bar-fetters were disapproved as normal modes of securing prisoners. These three cases are illustrative of the Court's jurisdiction to review prison regulations and to regulate the treatment of prisoners while in jail. ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... is Court for an expeditious disposal of such petitions but even then the petitions remain undisposed of for a long time. Seeing that the petition for reprieve or commutation is not being attended to and no reason is forthcoming as to why the delay is caused, this Court is driven to commute the death sentence into life imprisonment out of a sheer sense of helplessness and frustration. Therefore, with respect, the fixation of the time limit of two years does not seem to us to accord with the common experience of the time normally consumed by the litigative process and the proceedings before the executive. Apart from the fact that the rule of two years runs in the teeth of common experience as regards the time generally occupied by proceedings in the High Court, the Supreme Court and before the executive authorities, we are of the opinion that no absolute or unqualified rule can be laid down that in every case in which there is a long delay in the execution of a death sentence, the sentence must be substituted by the sentence of life imprisonment. There are several other factors which must be taken into account while considering the question as to whether the death sentence should ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ted for the reason that its execution is delayed. The substitution of the death sentence by a sentence of life imprisonment cannot follow by the application of the two years' formula as a matter of quod erat demonstrandum . In the case before us, the sentence of death was imposed upon the petitioners by the learned Sessions Judge, Sangrur, on November 26, 1977. It was upheld by the High Court on July 18, 1978. This Court dismissed the Special Leave Petition filed by the petitioners on March 5, 1979. The matter is pending in this Court since then in one form or another, by reason of some proceeding or the other. The last of the writ Petitions filed by the petitioners was dismissed by this Court on August 24, 1981. We do not know why the sentence imposed upon the petitioners has not been executed for more than a year and half. The Government of Punjab must explain that delay. We are of the opinion that, in the instant case, the sentence of death imposed upon the petitioners by the Sessions Court and which was upheld by the High Court, and this Court, cannot be vacated merely for the reason that there has been a long delay in the execution of that sentence. On the date when ..... 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