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HINDUSTAN TIMES, NEW DELHIWEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 03, 2014 09| nation |

Death penalty review plea decision a ‘welcome move’POSITIVE Experts say change was overdue, favour absolute transparency in dealing with decisions such as death penalty

Avantika Mehta■ avantika.mehta@hindustantimes.com

NEW DELHI: As the Supreme Court opened another window of hopefor death row convicts by allow-ing open court hearings of theirreview petitions, activists andlegal fraternity welcomed it say-ing, “There should be absoluteand full transparency in dealingwith an irreversible decision like the death penalty.”

Calling the apex court’s decision a “welcome change”,Suhas Chakma, director of theACHR questioned “why only thereview petition should be heard in open court.” After the review petition, the convict generally files a curative petition — thelast legal recourse available tohim — which is not heard inopen court.

Open court hearing of review petitions will give another oppor-

tunity to death row convicts toconvince the court to acquitthem or to commute their sen-tence to life imprisonment.

Retired SC judge RS Sodhi saidhe was glad that the review peti-tions would not just be decided bycirculation anymore. “While pass-

ing a death sentence, you are act-ing like God. You can’t give life but you are taking it. This will be anopportunity for the judge to review,rethink the matter carefully.”

“It is excellent that the court isacknowledging the status of thedeath penalty case — it can begiven by mistake, or because ofa lawyer’s incompetence, or evenif the judge has preconceived notions.”

Senior lawyer and Rajya Sabha member KTS Tulsi said,“It is always better to err on theside of caution when meting outan irreversible decision like thedeath penalty.” He added that hehad “always hoped that the apexcourt would take such a decision.”

Calling it a long overduedecision, senior lawyer ColinGonsalves said, “If it is opencourt, the advocate will at leasthave the ability to show what hasbeen missed or mistaken.”

Peerzada Ashiq & Rajeev Mullick■ letters@hindustantimes.com

SRINAGAR/ LUCKNOW: The Jammuand Kashmir government ismobilising men and machineryon a grand scale to ensure that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Teachers’ Day speech reachesthe state’s 2.36 million schoolstudents on September 5.

Apart from tapping 12,500 tel-evision sets and two educationalsatellites (edusats) for the cities, the administration is planning tomake 7,333 transistors available to schools located in remote areas

with no electricity, state educationsecretary Nirmal Sharma told HT.

The government has directeddivisional commissioners inKashmir and Jammu to ensure that all 23,485 public and private schools have television sets andgenerators for the occasion,Sharma added.

A National Infor maticsCentre base in far-flung Leh willensure interaction of students with the PM, which will also betelecast live.

The education secretary saidthat students have been askedto be in their schools at around

2:30pm. The PM’s speech willcommence at 3pm and will con-tinue till 4:45pm.

SP LAPTOPS FOR PM’SSPEECH WEBCASTSchool and college studentsfrom Uttar Pradesh will beable to watch Narendra Modi’s Teachers’ Day speech on lap-tops provided by chief ministerAkhilesh Yadav.

Colleges have been askedto rope in their alumni – who have received these free com-puters under a state governmentscheme – for a day, and make

arrangements so that studentscan tune in to Modi’s speechthat will have a live webcast.“About 1.44 million studentsnow have laptops provided bythe Samajwadi party (SP) gov-ernment,” said Awadh NareshSharma, director of secondaryeducation, UP.

At a time when most statesruled by non-NDA parties areresisting the Centre’s Teachers’Day programme, in UP the statemachinery is trying to ensurethe plan’s success.

About 13 million children studyin UP’s 22,000 secondary schools.

‘Enough safeguardsto ensure justice fordeath row convicts’Soibam Rocky Singh■ rocky.singh@hindustantimes.com

NEW DELHI: Justice J Chelameswaron Tuesday said that there wereenough legal safeguards toensure justice to death row con-victs as they were given properopportunity at every stage duringthe trial, while rejecting petitionsseeking open court hearing for review petitions.

“I am not able to agree with theproposition that such an obligationextends so far as to compulsorily giving an oral hearing in everycase where review is sought by aconvict,” Chelameswar, who deliv-ered the minority verdict, said. Headded, “It is a matter of record that this court in almost every case ofdeath penalty undertakes theexamination of the correctnessof such decision.”

Chelameswar did not agree withmajority verdict delivered by fourother judges led by Chief Justiceof India, RM Lodha, which took a more humane view of the issue.

Enumerating judicial safe-guards during the process oftrial and appeals, Chelameswars a i d t h e re we re va r i o u ssafeguards provided by theConstitution and the law ofthis country against awardingdeath penalty.

The majority verdict hasfavoured a “limited oral hearing”to be granted to the convict say-ing that there is a possibility of, given the same set of facts, “two judicial minds reaching differentconclusions either to award or decline to award death sentence.”

However, Chelameswar alsosaid that review petitions are normally heard by the samejudges which heard the appeal.“Therefore, the possibility of dif-ferent judicial minds reaching dif-ferent conclusions on the same setof facts does not arise,” he said.

J&K, UP plan big for Modi’s Sept 5 speech

SC to Bengal: Sterilising jumbos to check population is regressiveBhadra Sinha■ bhadra.sinha@hindustantimes.com

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday restrained the WestBengal government from imple-menting its proposal to steriliseelephants or any other wildlife torestrict their population, whilepulling up the ministry of envi-ronment and forest (MoEF) for ignoring issues regarding safetyof elephants.

A bench of justices DipakMisra and Vikramjit Sen passedthe order while hearing a PILrelating to large number of deathsof elephants on railway tracksin West Bengal, Assam, Odisha,Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

West Bengal’s move to steriliseelephants was brought to thecourt’s notice by the counsel of

Jharkhand, Tapesh Kumar Singh.He pointed out to the state forestminister’s statement that to curbthe growing elephant populationthe administration was contem-plating use of immuno contracep-tive drug to prevent procreation.

Calling it a “regressive step,” the bench also directed theMoEF secretary to be person-ally present at the next hearingto explain the measures the min-istry has taken in protectingelephants on the railway tracks.

■ Decreasing habitat has escalated elephant-human conflicts. PTI FILE

ARUN JAITLEY OPERATED UPONFOR DIABETESHT Correspondent■ letters@hindustantimes.com

NEW DELHI: Union finance anddefence minister Arun Jaitley onTuesday underwent a surgery for‘diabetes management’ at a cityhospital. Jaitley, 61, underwentbariatric surgery, which is com-monly known as weight-loss sur-gery, at a private hospital in Saket.

“He is overweight and hashad been suffering from uncon-trolled blood glucose levels, late-ly, for which this surgery is thebest known cure. In 92% casesit has worked successfully,” saidDr Pradeep Chowbey, director–institute of minimal access,metabolic and bariatric surgeryat Max Healthcare.

Bariatric surgery is done notonly to control morbid obesity, butalso to cure co-morbid conditionssuch as diabetes and hypertension.

Chowbey led the five-memberteam that performed the gastricbypass surgery, wherein a smallpouch is made in the stomach anda route is created for the food toreach directly to the small intes-tines, resulting in minimal calo-rie and nutrients absorption.

“The person is able to eat justabout one-third of the usualamount of food, and overeatingresults in vomiting. In a diabeticpatient, the food goes directlyinto the intestine and stimulatesinsulin,” Chowbey said.

Jaitley is most likely to bedischarged on Thursday.

Adani group, tribals make peaceEjaz Kaiser■ ejaz.kaiser@hindustantimes.com

RAIPUR: Six-hour-long negotiationson Tuesday defused the tensionamong the tribals who had stalledmining activities of Adani enter-prises in Parsa and Kante Basancoal mines area of Ambikapurdistrict, north Chhattisgarh, for five days. Over a thousand villag-ers and five Adani officials werepresent during the dialogue.

“We have given Adani officials

a deadline of September 20 tobegin the work of rehabilitationof the tribals whose lands wereacquired for mining. If they don’tcomply, I will be the first personto lock the gate of the company”,NN Ekka, additional collector(Ambikapur), told HT.

Getting written assurancesfrom both, officials of Adanigroup and the administration, the tribals decided to call off their protest and the productionat the mining site will resume

on Wednesday, the officer said.Progress made by the company

on the tribals’ demands would bemonitored by the administrationin the presence of villagers onthe first Sunday of every month.

Tribals in the area were protest-ing against the Adani enterprisesfor the latter’s alleged failure tocomply with their commitments.

Adani group bagged the con-tract from Rajashthan Rajya Vidhyut Nigam Limited, which got the block in 2007.

OPEN COURTThe SC decision will give another chance to convicts to escape the noose

DEATH ROW CONVICTS IN JAILMale FemaleAs of December 2012

CONVICTS LIKELY TO BENEFIT FROM SC DECISION■ 1993 Mumbai serial blast case convict

Yakub Abdul Razak Memon■ Four convicts in the December 16 gang

rape case, whose appeals are pendingbefore the SC would also benefit, incase their conviction is upheld

■ Sonu Sardar of Chhattisgarh who killedfive members of a family in November 2004.

■ Sunder alias Sundarrajan of Tamil Nadu, guilty of kid-napping a seven-year-old boy in 2009 and murdering him after his ran-som demand of five lakhs was not met

■ Three AIADMK workers - C Muniappan, Ravindran and Nedunchezhian– who burnt to death three college girls in Tamil Nadu in 2000 afterformer Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s conviction in a corruption case.

13

■ Anyone sentenced to death by a sessionscourt can file an appealbefore HC

■ A convict can’t be exe-cuted before the deathsentence is confirmed by division bench of HC■ Can challenge HC’s

verdict before SC where a three-judgebench hears appeal■ After dismissal ofhis appeal, his

review petition canbe heard in open court

■ Convict can file a cura-tive petition against dis-missal of review petition

■ Post dismissal of above, amercy plea before gover-nor/President can be filed

■ Still challenge dismissal ofmercy plea before HC/SC

VARIOUS STAGES OF APPEAL IN CASES

414

›IT IS EXCELLENTTHAT THE COURT IS

ACKNOWLEDGING THESTATUS OF THE DEATH PENALTY CASE. IT CANBE GIVEN BY MISTAKE, LAWYER’S INCOMPETENCEOR IF THE JUDGE HASPRECONCEIVED NOTIONSRS SODHI, retired SC judge

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