Guwahati, Jan. 19: Counsels of death row convict Mahendra Nath Das today argued that inordinate delay in disposing of his mercy petition was a ground for commutation of his death sentence.
Das's lawyers A.K. Bhattacharjee and Yug Chaudhry argued in Gauhati High Court today that pendency of his mercy plea for more than 11 years and 11 months with the President was a good ground for commutation of his death sentence to life term.
The hearing on the writ petition filed by Das with a prayer to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment before a division bench of the high court, comprising Chief Justice A.K. Goel and Justice Chitta Ranjan Sarma, remained inconclusive today and will resume tomorrow.
The contention of the petitioner was that the unexplained, unjustified and inordinately long delay in the disposal of his mercy petition entitled him to commutation of his death sentence to life imprisonment.
The district and sessions court, Kamrup, had convicted Das and sentenced him to death on August 18, 1997, for killing one Harakanta Das on April 24, 1996, at Fancy Bazar here. The death sentence was confirmed by Gauhati High Court and then upheld by the Supreme Court on May 14, 1999.
Das filed a mercy petition before the President on June 4, 1999, which was rejected on May 12, 2011.
The Centre will put forward its argument against Das's petition in the court tomorrow.
The state government had filed an affidavit last month opposing the petition filed by Das, stating the delay could not be a ground for commutation of his death penalty.
Lawyer B.D. Konwar, who is the counsel for victim Harakanta Das's son, Amal Das, said Mahendra Das was sentenced to death by following the process of law, and if the death penalty was converted to life imprisonment because of a delay on part of the government, it would be an insult to the process of justice for which the victim's family had waited patiently for all these years.
Amal Das has been impleaded as a party in this case as the petitioner had murdered his father.
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