The Supreme Court has admitted petitions for a review of its 2009 judgment awarding the death sentence to six accused in a murder case, and for commutation to life imprisonment.
A Bench of Justices A.K. Patnaik and Ibrahim Kalifulla admitted the petitions filed by Ankush Maruti Shinde and others, after senior counsel Soli Sorabjee argued that the case was wrongly decided on April 30, 2009, on the basis of a 1995 judgment in the case of Ravji.
In Ravji’s case, the court said that in determining whether the death sentence was to be awarded or not, the gravity and nature of the crime alone were to be taken into account, and not the circumstances relating to the convict. The Ravji decision was expressly stated to be per incuriam (one which ignores a contradictory statute or binding authority and is therefore wrongly decided and of no force). A judgment that was found to have been decided per incuriam “does not have to be followed as a precedent in a subsequent judgment,” Mr. Sorabjee argued.
He cited a catena of judgments to drive home the point that both the gravity of the crime and the circumstances in which the criminal was in must be considered, and failure to do so would result in miscarriage of justice.
Accepting his arguments, the Bench admitted the petitions, issued notice to Maharashtra and posted further hearing in open court to April 4.
