A day after the President stayed the execution of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh’s assassin Balwant Singh Rajoana with the state CM Parkash Singh Badal personally pleading for stay of his hanging, the Supreme Court on Thursday took a serious view of the “political interference” in such sensitive cases terrorism.
Without making a direct reference to the Akali Dal-led government of Badal who rushed to Delhi on Wednesday to meet the President and pleaded for the stay of Rajoana’s execution, a bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and S.J. Mukhopadhaya blamed the political class for dithering in taking timely decision to implement court verdicts in such serious cases.
“We would have liked to avoid everything (like this) but what has happened for the last four days in a particular state (Punjab) is a telling situation. If a decision was taken at an appropriate time public exchequer would have been saved of many crores (rupees lost due to damage caused to public properties),” the bench observed.
“When a person is convicted of the pre-dawn murder of a chief minister and it is noticed that the person is guilty of terrorism, he found support form political parties. (Obviously) the parties had garnered support from such persons, then how can they leave them now,” the top court asked.
The President had stayed Rajoana’s execution after a clemency petition was moved on his behalf by highest Sikh religious body Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee.
Badal had pleaded the President to stay Rajoana’s hanging on the ground that the case of other co-accused is still pending before the Supreme Court in appeal.
A trial court in Punjab had issued warrant for execution of Rajoana as he had refused to appeal in the Supreme Court against his conviction and also declined to file a mercy petition to the governor or the President.
The top court made the comments while hearing arguments from government counsel on the petition of another Punjab militant Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, who had questioned the “long delay” in deciding his mercy petition by the President. He is facing capital punishment for bombing the premises of Youth Congress in Delhi in 1993 and causing death of nine people.
The SC had confirmed Bhullar’s death sentence in 2005.