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Centre tells SC to commute Bhullar’s death penalty
Legal Correspondent

SGPC hails move SGPC chief Avtar Singh Makkar has welcomed the Centre’s move. He said the SGPC had been pushing for clemency for Devender Pal Bhullar (pic) and had even met the President in this regard. Makkar said Bhullar’s mental condition was not okay and even the doctors have confirmed it.

New Delhi, March 27
Devender Pal Singh Bhullar, awarded death penalty in a 1993 bomb blast case, is unlikely to be executed as the Centre today supported in the Supreme Court his plea for commuting his sentence to life term.

Appearing for the Centre, Attorney General GE Vahanvati told a four-member Bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam that “there is nothing to argue” in the case as the SC had already ruled that inordinate and unexplained delays in the rejection of mercy petitions was a ground for commutation.

Acknowledging that there was a delay of eight years in the rejection of Bhullar’s mercy petition, the AG said the convict’s plea filed through his wife, Navneet Kaur, “should be allowed on this ground alone.”

Kaur had filed the petition, pleading for sparing her husband’s life as he had spent 19 years in jail since his arrest in 1995 which amounted to serving life sentence. Taking note of the Centre’s stand today, the Bench remarked that it was based on sound logic. “We will deliver a short judgment next week,” it said.