Full Judgment Text
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PETITIONER:
KULJIT SINGH ALIAS RANGA
Vs.
RESPONDENT:
LT. GOVERNOR OF DELHI & ORS.
DATE OF JUDGMENT20/01/1982
BENCH:
CHANDRACHUD, Y.V. ((CJ)
BENCH:
CHANDRACHUD, Y.V. ((CJ)
REDDY, O. CHINNAPPA (J)
SEN, A.P. (J)
CITATION:
1982 AIR 774 1982 SCR (3) 58
1982 SCC (1) 417 1982 SCALE (1)1
CITATOR INFO :
RF 1989 SC 653 (9)
ACT:
Clemency jurisdiction-Power of President to grant
pardon etc. and to suspend, remit or commute sentences in
certain cases-Constitution of India, 1950, Article 72, scope
of the power.
HEADNOTE:
Dismissing the petition, the Court
^
HELD: 1. Whatever be the guidelines observed for the
exercise of the power conferred by Article 72 of the
Constitution. the only sentence which can, possibly be
imposed upon the petitioner in The instant case, is that of
death and no circumstances exist for interference with that
sentence. Not even tho most liberal use of his mercy
jurisdiction could have persuaded tho President to interfere
with the sentence of death imposed upon the petitioner in
view particularly of the considerations mentioned in KS.
Ranga v. Union of India and Anr., [1981] - 3 S.C R. 512.
Therefore, in refusing to commute the sentence the death
imposed upon the petitioner into a lesser sentence the
President has not in any manner transgressed his
discretionary power under Article 72. [59 D-E, 60 B-C]
2. Undoubtedly, the President has the power in an
appropriate case to commute any sentence imposed by Court
into a lesser sentence. But tho question as to whether the
case is appropriate for the exercise of the power conferred
by Article 72 depends upon the facts and circumstances of
each particular case. [59 E, G]
3. After all the power conferred by Article 72 can be
used only for the purpose of reducing the sentence, not for
enhancing it. Therefore, no useful purpose will be achieved
by the petitioner by ensuring the imposition of any severe,
judicially evolved constraints on the wholesome power of the
President to use it as the justice of a case may require.
[59 H, 60 A]
James Shewan & Sons v. United Stares, 69 L. Ed. 527 at
535, referred to.
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JUDGMENT:
ORIGINAL JURISDICTION: Writ Petition (Crl.) No. 8193A
of 1981.
(Under Article 32 of the Constitution of India)
R. K Garg, V. J. Francis, Sunil Kumar Jain and D. K
Garg for the Petitioner-Ranga
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R. K. Jain and P K. Jain for the Petitioner-Billa.
N. C. Talukdar and R. N. Poddar for Respondent No. 1.
L. N. Sinha, Attorney General and Miss A. Subhashini
for Attorney General.
K. Parasaran, Solicitor General, M. K. Banerji,
Additional Solicitor General and Miss A. Subhashini for
Union of India.
N. Nettar for the State of Karnataka.
Raju Ramachandran for Applicant/intervener-Chhaganlal
Aggarwal.
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
CHANDRACHUD C. J. The question as regards the scope of
the power of the President under article 72 of the
Constitution to commute a sentence of death into a lesser
sentence may have to await examination on an appropriate
occasion. This clearly is not that occasion because in so
far as this case is concerned, whatever be the guidelines
observed for the exercise of the power conferred by article
72, the only sentence which can possibly be imposed upon the
petitioner is that of death and no circumstances exist for
interference with that sentence. Therefore we see no
justification for saying that in refusing to commute the
sentence of death imposed upon the petitioner into a lesser
sentence, the President has in any manner transgressed his
discretionary power under article 72. Undoubtedly, the
President has the power in an appropriate case to commute
any sentence imposed by a court into a lesser sentence and
as said by Chief Justice Taft in James Shewan & Sons v
United States, the "executive clemency exists to afford
relief from undue harshness or evident mistake in the
operation or enforcement of the criminal law" and that the
administration of justice by the courts is not necessarily
or certainly considerate of circumstances which may properly
mitigate guilt. But the question as to whether the case is
appropriate for the exercise of the power conferred by
Article 72 depends upon the facts and circumstances of each
particular case. The necessity or the justification for
exercising that power has therefore to be judged from case
to case. In fact, we do not see what useful purpose will be
achieved by the petitioner by
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ensuring the imposition of any severe, judicially- evolved
constraints on the wholesome power of the President to use
it as the justice of a case may require. After all, the
power conferred by Article 72 can be used only for the
purpose of reducing the sentence, not for enhancing it. We
need not, however, go into that question elaborately because
in so far as this case is concerned, we are quite clear that
not even the most liberal use of his mercy jurisdiction
could have persuaded the President to interfere with the
sentence of death imposed upon the petitioner, in view
particularly of the considerations mentioned by us in our
judgment in Kuljeet Singh @ Ranga v. Union of India & Anr.
We may recall what we said in that judgment that "the death
of the Chopra children was caused by the petitioner and his
companion Billa after a savage planning which bears a
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professional stamp", that the "survival of an orderly
society demands the extinction of the life of persons like
Ranga and Billa who are a menace to social order and
security", and that "they are professional murderers and
deserve no sympathy even in terms of the evolving standards
of decency of a mature society".
The petition is accordingly dismissed.
We have heard Shri R. K. Jain as amicus on behalf of
the accused Billa. We see no substance in Shri Jain’s
contentions also.
The order of stay of execution of the death sentence
which we had passed in favour of the accused Ranga and Billa
as also the general order of stay are hereby vacated If in
any specific case or cases there is an express order of
stay, it will not be affected by the order which we are
passing today.
S.R. Petition dismissed.
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