Convicts who are awarded death penalty cannot claim commuting of their sentence on the ground of delay in the judicial process, the Supreme Court today said.
A bench of justices P Sathasivam and B S Chauhan cited an apex court judgement of 1989 which had ruled that "sentence can't be commuted merely on the ground of delay alone".
The bench gave its view while dealing with the plea of the 11 persons who were given capital punishment by a TADA court in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case.
Though the bench commuted the death sentence of 10 convicts to life imprisonment, except that of Yakub Abdul Razak Memon, it pointed out that no rule can be laid down that in every case where there is a long delay in execution of death sentence, the punishment must be substituted by that of life term.
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