[dropcap]A [/dropcap] three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna today quashed a death warrant issued by a Principal Sessions Judge in Tamil Nadu for not waiting for the accused to exhaust the appellate remedies available to him before the Supreme Court to challenge his conviction and death sentence.
Kattavellai @ Devakar was sentenced to death under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The warrant of execution was issued by the Principal Judge, Theni on March 27, 2019, against Kattavellai, presently lodged at Madurai Central Prison after the sentence was affirmed by the High Court on March 13, 2019. The death warrant was issued even before the prisoner could take steps to file his appeal.
After the petitioner’s counsel informed the court that the Principal Judge had withdrawn the order, the Supreme Court said,
“Be that as it may, as the period for filing of a special leave petition/an appeal against the order of conviction and sentence passed is yet to be over, we are of the view that the warrant for execution of death sentence, dated 27.3.2019, is contrary to the law laid down by this Court in Shabnam vs. Union of India & Ors., (2015) 6 SCC 702. Accordingly, we deem it proper, without issuing any notice, to set aside the said warrant of execution of death sentence and allow this petition under Article 32 of the Constitution”.
Kattavellai @ Devakar, a 30-year-old is accused of committing a double murder.
A division bench of Madras High Court comprising Justices R. Subbiah and B.Pugalendhi while affirming the death sentence awarded by the trial court said, “We hold that there can be no doubt that the entire occurrence resulting in the murder of a young girl will fall within the rarest of rare category propounded by the Supreme Court. For having committed such a gruesome, inhuman, barbaric and heinous offence, the accused cannot be imposed with any other punishment other than a death sentence and therefore, we are inclined to confirm the death sentence imposed by the trial court on the accused”.
Read the order here:
https://www.sci.gov.in/supremecourt/2019/13831/13831_2019_Order_16-Apr-2019.pdf
