The supreme court of India yesterday held that “The diabolic act of the killers of the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi shattered the great faith of an entire country and they do not even deserve a ray of hope that they will be released one day.”
A Constitution Bench, led by Chief Justice of India H.L. Dattu, rejected Tamil Nadu’s arguments that the seven prisoners should not be robbed of their hope to be freed on remission. “We find no scope to apply the concept of ray of hope to come to the rescue of such hardened, heartless offenders, which if considered in their favour will only result in misplaced sympathy and again will not be in the interest of society. Therefore, we reject the said argument outright,” observed Justice F.M.I. Kalifulla, who authored the 200-page majority judgment. Why should they enjoy a “ray of hope” for their freedom when no such sympathy was shown to their victims “who were done to death and whose dependents were to suffer the aftermath with no solace left”.
Justice Kalifulla wrote that “For instance, in the case relating to the murder of the former Prime Minister, in whom the people of this country reposed great faith and confidence when he was entrusted with such a great responsible office in the fond hope that he will do his best to develop this country…, all the hope of the entire people of this country was shattered by a planned murder,”.
Constitutional bench referring to the Godse’s case stated that
“The law on the point of life imprisonment is that life imprisonment means till the end of one’s life and that by very nature the sentence is indeterminable. Any fixed term sentence characterized as minimum which must be undergone before any remission could be considered, cannot affect the character of life imprisonment but such direction goes and restricts the exercise of power of remission before the expiry of such stipulated period.”
Apex court further laid down that the Centre, and not the State government, will have the “primacy” in deciding whether remission should be granted to life-term convicts in the cases which concerned the CBI or any Central agency as in the case of Rajiv Gandhi killers. “When it comes to the question of national interest or any other emergent or unforeseen situation warranting control in the nature of a super-terrestrial order [celestial], the Executive Power of the Union can be exercised like a bull in a china shop,” Justice Kalifulla wrote.
Read the full judgement 2015-12-02_1449046620