The Supreme Court has extended the deadline of April 30 by two months for the Centre to make a decision on Balwant Singh Rajoana’s mercy petition, which is pending, with excruciating cost on the prisoner, for the last decade. Balwant Singh was awarded death sentence in the case of former Chief Minister of Punjab Beant Singh’ assassination in 1995. A mercy petition was submitted by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) on his behalf in 2012. President of India Ram Nath Kovind is to decide the fate of the petition after receiving a proposal from the Central government. The backdrop of the political history of this case indicates that the Centre may continue to avoid propelling the fate of Balwant Singh’s mercy petition either way. In such a case, it may very well rest on the Apex Court to take the matter in its hands and end the pendency in line with the death penalty jurisprudence in India.
Mitigating circumstances
During his trial, Balwant Singh chose not to defend himself. In his statements, justifying his actions, he stated that Beant Singh was targeted as he was accountable for numerous deaths and disappearance of Sikh men in police custody during his tenure as the Chief Minister of Punjab. The High Court judgment records that Balwant Singh expressed his remorse over the killings of other “innocent persons”, who died along with Beant Singh. Nevertheless, the death sentence was imposed on him first by the trial court in 2007, and confirmed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2010. The sentencing carried out by these courts neglected the Supreme Court’s mandate in Bachan Singh vs State of Punjab on stating special reasons before imposing the extreme punishment of death, as opposed to the norm of sentence of life, after their assessment of aggravating factors and mitigating circumstances, i.e. circumstances related to the crime and the convict’s life history which exasperate and alleviate respectively, the death worthiness of the convict. However, in this case, the discussion on sentence by the two courts was limited to the act of crime and expression of remorse. No mitigating circumstances including jail conduct, were recognised and appreciated.
