Quashing the death warrants issued by a sessions court in the case of a couple guilty of murdering seven members of a family, the Supreme Court upheld on Wednesday that in a civilised society, the hanging to death of a convict could not be carried out in an arbitrary manner, keeping him or her in the dark and without allowing recourse and information.
The death warrants were issued by the court in Amroha on May 21, days after the Supreme Court confirmed the death penalty of the couple, Shabnam and Saleem, on May 18. The two were found guilty of murdering seven members of Shabnam’s family in 2008.
A Bench of Justices A.K. Sikri and U.U. Lalit stopped the execution of the couple, while confirming certain “essential safeguards” available to a death row convict before a warrant of execution is issued.
These safeguards were laid down by the Allahabad High Court in 2014 on writ petitions filed by the Nithari convict Surendra Koli and the People’s Union for Democratic Rights against the execution of his death sentence in the Rimpa Haldar case.
‘Open-ended’ warrantsWith this order, the Supreme Court has protected death row convicts from “open-ended” death warrants, issued unilaterally without following the due process of law under Article 21 of the Constitution.
The Supreme Court has sent a clear message that principles of natural justice cannot be thrown out of the window when it comes to death row convicts by unilaterally fixing their time of execution without hearing them first.
