SC declines to commute death penalty of Rajoana

N E W D E L H I : Th e Su pr e me C our t d e cl i n e d t o co mm ut e t h e d e a t h penal ty of Bal wa nt Singh Ra joan a, who was convicted in the 1995 a ssassinat ion ca se of then Punjab Chie f Minister Bea nt Sing h, to life imprison me nt

The court said the competent authority may deal with Rajoana's mercy plea What we have decided is that the stand of the Ministry of Home Affairs to defer the decision on the mercy petition of the petitioner is also our decision for the reasons given hereunder

This actually amounts to declining grant the same (remission) for the present Therefore, we have directed that the competent authority will again as and when they deem necessary will deal with the mercy petition and take a further decision The writ petition (of Rajoana) is disposed of accordingly, a bench comprising Justices B R Gavai, Vikram Nath and Sanjay Karol said

On March 2, the top court had reserved its verdict on the plea of Rajoana after hearing the submissions of senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the convict, and

Additional Solicitor General K M Natraj

Earlier, the counsel for Rohatgi had said that keeping him on death row while sitting over his mercy plea for such a long period violated his fundamental right His plea for mercy has been pending before the government for over a decade

On October 11 last year, the top court had said that a three-judge bench would be set up to hear the plea of Rajoana Rohatgi had said that his client was in jail for 26 years and has a substantive case based on the judgments of the apex court that his rights under Article 21 of the Constitution (the right to protection of life and personal liberty) has been violated

On September 28 last year, the top court had expressed dissatisfaction over the Centre's failure to take a decision on Rajoana's plea for his death penalty to be commuted to life imprisonment Rohatgi had said Rajoana has been in jail since January 1996 and his mercy petition was filed in March 2012 He said his client has been on death row since 2007

Congress headlined its manifesto for Karnataka with a controversial proposal to ban Bajrang Dal “Congress is committed to taking firm and decisive action against individuals and organisations like Bajrang Dal and PFI as we believe that law and the Constitution are sacrosanct ” states the 62-page document released by AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge A day after BJP promised to bring the proposed uniform civil code and NRC to Karnataka alongside big bang development Congress also spoke of repealing within a year of coming to government all unjust and other anti-people laws passed by the BJP-led government The manifesto mentions the party s intent to raise reservation from the current 50% to 75%, besides restoring the 4% quota for Muslims that the Basavaraj Bommai government recently did away with All of this is besides the five big guarantees in the manifesto Gruha Jyoti promises 200 units of free electricity a month to each family, Gruha Laxmi assures Rs 2,000 a month to every woman who heads a household Yuva Nidhi will provide Rs 3,000 a month to unemployed graduates and Rs 1 500 to diploma holders; Anna Bhagya covers free 10 kg of rice per person each month to BPL families; and Shakti ensures free travel for women in state-run transport

Explosion Near Golden Temple Hurts 6

Six people mainly devotees were injured in a minor blast on Heritage Street near Golden Temple last week leading to panic in the area Police however said it was not a terror attack but an accident A forensic team launched an investigation The injuries were caused by the flying shards of windowpanes of nearby buildings that shattered due to the impact of the explosion A resident said the explosion near the Saragarhi Sarai parking left a group of girls injured Former minister Navjot Singh Sidhu attacked the Bhagwant Mann government saying “the war in which the life of the king is not at risk is called politics, not war”

HC STAYS VISVA-BHARATI’S EVICTION NOTICE TO AMARTYA SEN

The Calcutta High Court asked the Suri district judge to hear Amartya Sen’s appeal against the Visva-Bharati eviction on May 10 and stayed the VB’s eviction order till the Suri judge disposes off Sen’s appeal VB had given Sen a May 6 deadline either to vacate the 13 decimals of land in Pratichi or face forcible eviction Justice Bibhas Ranjan De in his two-page order said “Having heard the learned advocates the learned District Judge Birbhum is requested to hear the stay application on 10th May 2023 and till then the order of Joint Registrar Visva Bharati & Estate Officer should not been forced or till the date of disposal of the stay application, whichever is later When the matter came up for hearing Sen s counsel Jayanta Mitra said the district judge had failed to act by not passing any order on Sen’s appeal VB s counsel Sucharita Biswas argued if the district judge did not pass any order, there is no basis to challenge anything