This is the reason why the supreme court stayed the execution of Surender Koli (Accused of Nithari Killings) The Supreme Court on Monday stayed the execution of Surinder Koli, convicted of Nithari killings, for a week until a fresh review petition challenging his death penalty is heard in an open courtroom by a Bench of three judges of the apex court. The stay order was passed by a Bench of Justices H.L. Dattu and A.R. Dave at the former’s official residence in Delhi a few hours before Koli was scheduled to be hanged. The hook and loop to hang Koli had arrived from Naini Central Jail in Allahabad to the Chaudhary Charan Singh district jail, where he was shifted to for his execution. “We approached Justice Dattu at 1.30 am. There was a sitting of a Bench of Justices Dattu and Dave, which ordered that the execution be stayed for a period of a week until Koli’s fresh review be heard by a Bench comprising three judges of the Supreme Court in an open courtroom, where his counsel will be allowed to submit limited oral arguments on his behalf pleading for reversal of his reversal of death penalty,” Indira Jaising, senior advocate, told The Hindu on Monday. The same Bench had dismissed an earlier review petition by Koli on July 25, saying there was no merit in it. But a 4:1 majority judgment pronounced by a Constitution Bench led by CJI R.M. Lodha on September 3 has now led to this temporary reprieve for Koli. The Constitution Bench verdict opened the door wide for death row convict to move the Supreme Court afresh. The Constitution Bench judgment authored by Justice Rohinton Nariman had held that “the fundamental right to life and the irreversibility of a death sentence mandate that oral hearing be given at the review stage in death sentence cases, as a just, fair and reasonable procedure under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution”. It allowed fresh public hearing of review petitions, including pending ones and those dismissed. Counsel for the convict would be now given a 30-minute window to make oral arguments on behalf of the condemned man. The judgment had come on a batch of petition filed by eight men on death row who challenged the practice of Supreme Court judges hearing review petitions of death row convicts in their chambers and not in the public glare of open courtrooms. Koli was found guilty of serial rapes and murders between 2005 and 2006 at his employer, businessman Moninder Singh Pandhers house in Nithari. Remains of several missing children were found near the house. Koli was sentenced to death in four cases and his death sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Court in 2011, which described him as a serial killer who deserves no mercy. Death-row convicts get 30 min to argue review in open court Wednesday, 03 September 2014 | Abraham Thomas | New Delhi SC agrees to a PIL’s contention that in-chamber judgement is violative of Article 21 In a matter of life and death, the Supreme Court on Tuesday decided to grant death-row convicts a 30-minute extra time to argue their review petitions in open court. So far, the review petitions used to be decided by judges in chambers with exceptions in the cases where these were listed in open court. Some death-row convicts challenged this practice as being violative of Article 21 (Right to life and liberty) of the Constitution and demanded that the review petitions involving death penalty must be listed in open court and lawyers of the convict should be allowed to argue the case. A Constitution Bench accepted this argument by a 4:1 majority and held that henceforth review petitions of death-row convicts will be listed in open court before a three-judge bench that dealt with the case. “We feel that a limited oral hearing even at the review stage is mandated by Article 21 in all death sentence cases,” said a Bench of Chief Justice RM Lodha, JS Khehar, AK Sikri and Rohington F Nariman, comprising the majority view. It even fixed a limit of 30 minutes for the lawyer to point out any material error in the order of the court that may result in the miscarriage of justice. Only on this ground, a review petition is maintainable. “When it is a question of life and death of a person, even a remote chance of deviating from such a decision while exercising the review jurisdiction would justify oral hearing in a review petition,” the majority verdict held. The lone judge to take a dissenting view was Justice J Chelameswar, who held that decision with regard to hearing of review petition should be best left to the court deciding the matter. The benefit of this ruling will be available to all death-row convicts in future and in pending review petitions before the Supreme Court. Even those death-row convicts whose review petitions have been dismissed can file another review petition within one month. However, the judgment will not be applicable to cases where the death-row convicts had lost the highest remedy of curative petition in the Supreme Court. This has been done with the aim to avoid clogging of cases in the apex court and prevent reopening of decided cases. Writing the majority view, Justice Nariman said since death penalty is irreversible in nature, and the “fact that different judicially trained minds can arrive at conclusions which, on the same facts, can be diametrically opposed to each other, we feel that if the fundamental right to life is involved, any procedure to be just, fair and reasonable should take into account the two factors mentioned above.”
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 15:05:04 +0000
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