Bhullar case: 'No longer a judge, govt cannot seek my opinion'
~~Parimal Dabhi : Ahmedabad

When the government has to decide on an appeal for commutation of a sentence, the law has a provision for seeking the opinion of the presiding judge of the bench that gave the verdict. But that holds good only when the judge is still serving, said Justice M B Shah, now retired and the sole dissenting judge in 2002 when a Supreme Court bench upheld the death sentence of Devinderpal Singh Bhullar.

He referred to section 432(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code, under which the government can take the opinion of the presiding judge of the bench that had decided the convict's original appeal. "For that, the judge has to be a sitting judge," Shah, who had been the presiding judge on the three-judge bench, told The Indian Express on Sunday.

"The other two judges and I have retired. I cease to be a Supreme Court judge and the government cannot seek my opinion," he said. And even if the government should ask for the judges' opinion, he said, it would become a question of "interpretation of law".

The Supreme Court this month rejected a petition to commute the sentence of Bhullar, whose mercy plea had been rejected by the President in 2011. Once a mercy plea has been decided, Shah said, there is little chance of a death sentence being commuted. "It (chances of commutation of a sentence) depends on the status of the mercy petition. If it is pending, then there are chances. If it is not pending, then there isn't any chance," Shah said.

Shah, who had junked the confession attributed to Bhullar, recalled there was no corroborative evidence to back up the claim that Bhullar did indeed conspire for the 1993 Delhi blasts.

Shah, now based in Ahmedabad, refused to comment on the recent Supreme Court judgment. "I would not like to comment. I am a retired judge and I would not like criticism of my judgment."

Shah currently heads a commission formed by the Supreme Court to investigate illegal mining in various states. He also heads a commission formed by the Gujarat government to probe allegations of corruption in government.

Courtesy: Indian Express