NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has held that long delay in deciding the mercy plea of a terror convict cannot be the ground for granting commutation of death penalty to life sentence, putting terrorism on the top of a hierarchy of “rarest-of-rare” crimes which attract capital punishment.

“Terrorism stands on an altogether different plane and cannot be compared with murders committed due to personal animosity or over property and personal disputes,” Justices GS Singhvi and SJ Muhopadhyaya said as they turned down the plea of Khalistani terrorist Devender Pal Singh Bhullar .

The judges also said the change in the crime scenario exemplified by rise of terrorism was the main reason why death sentence has remained in the statute book and abolitionist have failed to make headway, scoffing at efforts to secure relief for terror convicts by human rights activists.

“It is paradoxical that the people who do not show any mercy or compassion for others plead for mercy and project delay as a ground for commutation of the sentence of death. Many others join the bandwagon to espouse the cause of terrorists involved in the gruesome killing and mass murder of innocent civilians and raise the bogey of human rights,” the court said.

The bench further said, “While doing so, they (the terrorists) do not show any respect for human lives. Before killing the victims, they do not think even for a second about the parents, wives, children and other near and dear ones of the victims. The families of those killed suffer agony for their entire life, apart from financial and other losses.”

Saying that the crime scenario had changed globally, Justices Singhvi and Mukhopadhya said, “While there is no abatement in the crimes committed due to personal animosity and property disputes, people across the world have suffered on account of new forms of crimes. The monster of terrorism has spread its tentacles in most of the countries.

“India is one of the worst victims of internal and external terrorism. In the last three decades, hundreds of innocent lives have been lost on account of the activities of terrorists, who have mercilessly killed people by using bullets, bombs and other modern weapons.”

The bench quoted a 1994 judgment of the SC, which had described the spread of terrorism related violence to various parts of the country resulting in deaths of innocent and defenceless civilians, politicians, police officers and security forces.

Though the Indian Penal Code , which was framed in 1860, carried death penalty right from inception under Section 302, after independence, an unsuccessful bid for abolition of capital punishment led to the introduction of a bill in Lok Sabha in 1956.

Tracing the history, Justices Singhvi and Mukhopadhaya said, “After two years, a similar resolution was introduced in Rajya Sabha but, after considerable debate, the same was withdrawn. Another attempt was made in this regard in 1961 but the resolution moved in the Rajya Sabha was rejected in 1962.”

But the votaries of “no capital punishment’ persisted with their demand and the matter was referred to the Law Commission of India, which in its report suggested retaining death penalty saying “India cannot risk the experiment of abolition of capital punishment” given the ground situation in the country.

A constitution bench of the Supreme Court in 1980 (Bachan Singh vs Punjab) by a 4:1 majority upheld the constitutional validity of Section 302 of IPC but did not enumerate the cases in which death penalty should be awarded instead of life sentence. In later years, the court restricted the award of death penalty to “rarest of rare category cases”.

dhananjay.mahapatra@timesgroup.com