The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked Home Ministry to decide on a mercy plea filed by Babbar Khalsa’s Balwant Singh Rajoana, who was convicted for killing former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh.
A three-judge Supreme Court bench of Justices BR Gawai, Vikram Nath and Sanjay Karol asked competent authorities to take a decision as and when they deem necessary, on the mercy petition of Balwant Singh Rajoana.
Rajoana had approached the Supreme Court in 2020 asking for commutation saying that Centre had in 2019 announced its decision to commute his death penalty to life imprisonment and grant remission to 8 other convicts to mark the occasion of the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak.
Back then, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had clarified in Lok Sabha that no such pardon was given to Balwant Singh Rajoana, who was convicted for the assassination of the then Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh in 1995.
Rajoana, a former Punjab Police constable, was convicted for his involvement in an explosion outside the Punjab civil secretariat that killed Beant Singh and 16 others in 1995.
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), which is part of the Narendra Modi government, had said the decision of commutation of death sentence would go a long way in assuaging the “hurt” feelings of the Sikh community who had to go through “unspeakable repression and humiliation during those dark days” when Punjab was pushed into terrorism.
Read all the Latest India News here
Comments
0 comment