Supreme Court Reserves Judgment On Death Row Convict's Plea To Apply 'Manoj' Judgment

The Supreme Court today(May 1) reserved judgment in a writ petition seeking to determine whether the benefit of the 2022 Manoj judgment would apply to the present petitioner on the death row.

The present petitioner is on death row for raping and murdering a 4 years old child. A writ petition has been filed for the Court to determine if the subsequent judgment in Manoj, wherein practical guidelines on mitigating circumstances were issued, could be applied in giving relief to him. 

The Manoj judgment was pronounced by a bench of Justices UU Lalit, S Ravindra Bhat and Bela M Trivedi on May 10, 2022. In the said judgment, the Court stated that mitigating circumstances must be considered at the trial stage and the state must produce the materials disclosing the psychiatric and psychological evaluation of the accused.

A bench of Justice Vikram Nath, Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Sandeep Mehta in the last hearing questioned if an Article 32 petition could be filed against the Supreme Court judgment which confirmed the death penalty and especially after the judgment has attained finality and no curative petition has been filed.

Vasanta's death sentence was confirmed by a three-judge bench on November 26, 2014. A review petition was subsequently dismissed on May 3, 2017. Thereafter, the Governor and the President, respectively, rejected his mercy petition in 2022 and 2023, respectively. 

Appearing for the petitioner Vasanta, through The Square Circle Clinic, NALSAR's Criminal Justice Initiative (formerly known as NLUD's Project 39A), Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayan reiterated that the benefit of Manoj judgment should be offered to the present death row convict. Whereas, Advocate General of Maharashtra, Dr. Birendra Saraf and Additional Solicitor General, K.M. Natraj, both clarified that their position that the writ petition is not maintainable and the remedy sought, if any, has to come from a curative petition. 

Sankaranarayan referred to the A.R. Antulay Vs. R.S. Nayak (1988) judgment and quoted:" In our opinion, we are not debarred from re- opening this question and giving proper directions and correcting the error in the present appeal, when the said directions on February 16, 1984, were violative of the limits of jurisdiction and the directions have resulted in deprivation of the fundamental rights of the appellant, guaranteed by Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution. The appellant has been treated differently from other offenders, accused of a similar offence in view of the provisions of the Act of 1952 and the High Court was not a Court competent to try the offence. According to Shri Jethmalani, the doctrine of per incurium has no application in the same proceedings. We are unable to accept this contention. We are of the opinion that this Court is not powerless to correct its error which has the effect of depriving a citizen of his fundamental rights and more so, the right to life and liberty. It can do so in exercise of its inherent jurisdiction in any proceeding pending before it without insisting on the formalities of a review application. Powers of review can be exercised in a petition filed under Article 136 or Article 32 or under any other provision of the Constitution if the Court is satisfied that its directions have resulted in the deprivation of the fundamental rights of a citizen or any legal right of the petitioner."

He submitted that even under Article 32, the remedy sought by the petitioner can be entertained. He added: "As far as I am concerned, I am not asking for a revisiting the conviction...I am not, even for a moment, saying please revisit the sentence. I am saying please consider the subsequent judgment by Your Lordships in the celebrated judgment which laid down guidelines for the purpose of mitigation which was not admittedly not available at that time when the principal judgment was delivered. In Antulay, there was an entire judgment which had error...I am on a strong footing because I am not saying there was an error. I am saying it was not available to the hon'ble judges at that point as it was the subsequent judgment. But since it is being available, I am fortunately available since the execution blow has not yet come for me, allow me to take advantage of this as you have done for many who have committed offence before me."

Case Details: VASANTA SAMPAT DUPARE v. UNION OF INDIA AND ANR|W.P.(Crl.) No. 371/2023