New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday adjourned the hearing on death row convict Devender Pal Singh Bhullar till March 26 as Attorney General GE Vahanvati has sought more time on grounds that the government is yet to take a decision on Bhullar's mercy plea.
The Centre had earlier assured the Supreme Court that the Khalistan Liberation Force terrorist will not be executed. The assurance came in the wake of a mercy plea filed by his wife which is still pending before the President.
The government has also informed the court that the Home Ministry was looking at the Delhi Lieutenant Governor's recommendation that his plea be accepted.
Bhullar's wife filed the petition for relook against the apex court verdict which rejected her plea to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment on grounds of delay on the part of the government in deciding his mercy plea.
Bhullar was convicted and awarded death penalty for triggering a bomb blast in New Delhi in September 1993, which killed nine persons and injured 25 others, including then Youth Congress president M S Bitta.
The apex court had on March 26, 2002 dismissed Bhullar's appeal against the death sentence awarded by a trial court in August 2001 and endorsed by the Delhi high court in 2002. He had filed a review petition which was also dismissed on December 17, 2002. Bhullar had then moved a curative petition which too had been rejected by the apex court on March 12, 2003.
Bhullar, meanwhile, had filed a mercy petition before the President on January 14, 2003.
The President, after a lapse of over eight years, dismissed his mercy plea on May 14, 2011. Citing the delay, he had again moved the apex court for commutation of the death sentence but his plea was rejected.
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