M A I N   N E W S

SC dismisses Bhullar's plea

New Delhi, April 3
The Supreme Court has turned down a last-minute appeal by Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, convicted and sentenced to death in the 1993 case pertaining to an assassination attempt on the then Youth Congress president Maninderjit Singh Bitta, to escape the capital punishment.

Chief Justice V.N. Khare, Mr Justice S. Rajendra Babu, Mr Justice S.S.M. Quadri, Mr Justice B.N. Agrawal and Mr Justice Arijit Pasayat, in a chamber mentioning last month, dismissed a curative petition filed by Bhullar seeking permission for “hearing and raising of additional grounds”.

The only course open for the convict now to escape the gallows is to petition the President seeking reduction of the death sentence to life imprisonment.

Earlier, the court had dismissed a petition filed by him seeking review of last year’s decision awarding him death penalty for the assassination attempt in which a car bomb was used by the killers.

In the majority decision delivered by a three-Judge Bench in March last year, the court had held that the explosion of a car bomb was an act of terrorism.

The blast was carried out by five members of the Khalistan Liberation Front on September 7, 1993 outside the Raisina Road office of the Indian Youth Congress in which nine persons were killed and 29 injured.

PATIALA: Shiromani Gurdwara Parbhandak Committee (SGPC) President Kirpal Singh Badungar on Thursday urged President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam to sympathetically consider the clemency appeal of Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, who was recently awarded the death penalty.

Talking to TNS here, Mr Badungar said since the Supreme Court had today rejected the appeal against the death penalty in Bhullar’s case, it was now up to the President to assuage the sentiments of the Sikh community on the issue. PTI, TNS