How sisters, who tortured kids to death, escaped death sentence

* Renuka Shinde and Seema Gavit were accused of kidnapping 13 children and killing nine of them* They were eventually convicted for killing five children and sentenced to death in Kolhapur in Maharashtra in 2001* The sisters would snatch bags in crowded streets and, if caught, would start beating up the children mercilessly to create a distraction and escape* The state spent almost eight years sitting on their mercy petition after the death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2006* This allowed the sisters to appeal for a lesser sentence, ironical as it may sound, on grounds of crueltyIs waiting for years for the execution of a death sentence as bad, or worse, than death itself? Does such a delay allow a death-row convict to seek a lower sentence? What if the offence committed falls in the “rarest of rare” category?All these questions were at the centre of a Bombay high court order on Tuesday, January 18, commuting the death sentence awarded to half-sisters Renuka Shinde and Seema Gavit to life in jail because of an inordinate delay in deciding their mercy petition.Renuka and Seema, along with their mother, Anjana, and Renuka’s husband, Kiran, were accused of kidnapping 13 children between 1990 and 1996 and killing nine of them in Kolhapur district of Maharashtra.While Anjana passed away as the case wound its way through courts, Kiran turned approver.It was not just the number of children whose lives were snuffed out, but the way they were killed that led to the sisters being sentenced to death by a lower court in June 2001 and the sentence being upheld by the Bombay high court in September 2004 and then the Supreme Court in August 2006.The sisters use to kidnapped children to steal bags in crowded places. If caught, the presence of a child with them would be used as a cover to claim innocence. And if things got out of hand, the women would begin beating up the kid mercilessly to create distraction, forcing the gathered crowd to back off.At least two of the six children the sisters were eventually convicted of killing died when being tortured in this manner. Old newspaper reports are not clear on how the others were killed. medium89021371According to the HC judgement of 2004, the sisters had gone out to watch a movie after killing one child, carrying the body along in a bag. On another occasion, when a child’s head was being smashed against an iron grill as one of the sisters tried to create a diversion after being caught stealing, the other two watched while munching on vada-pav at a nearby stall.Did the sisters, whose crimes were described as “brutal” and perpetuated by “an extremely depraved mind,” by both the Bombay high court and the Supreme Court, deserve leniency then?And what about the state government officials primarily responsible for “dereliction” of duty that led to the convicts’ mercy petition moving from one desk to the other and from one office to the other for years?Let’s see what the Bombay high court had to say and if there are any precedents on the implications of a decision on a mercy petition being delayed.Right to lifeThe Bombay high court division bench, based on a Supreme Court judgement and a bunch of judgments from other high courts, observed that Constitutional rights of the duo under Article 21 (Right to Life) were violated. The bench also observed that the fact that despite the long delay, the state still sought upholding of the death sentence indicated that it was still willing to ignore the dereliction of duty on the part of its officers.“Though the procedure for deciding the mercy petitions mandates speed and expediency, the state’s machinery showed indifference and laxity at each stage of processing of the files. That it took over seven years only for the movement of files for such a grave issue is unacceptable when electronic communications were available to be used,” the bench observed.Expressing agony over the fact that the court was commuting the death sentence in a case where such brutality was displayed by the convicts, the bench said: “The state represents the interest of the society in the criminal justice system. The respondent-state not only has violated the constitutional rights of the petitioners but also failed the innocent victims of these heinous crimes.”Out of the 59 pages of Tuesday’s judgement, the bench dedicated six pages to the exact procedure to be followed by the Union and the state governments when following up on a mercy petition. Another 17 pages were used to trace the exact movement of the files within the state’s bureaucracy. medium89019087What the law saysDelay on part of the judiciary in deciding cases has often been cited for commuting death sentences to life imprisonment.Another Supreme Court judgement from as far back as 1983 held that delay in “execution of sentence” for a prisoner sentenced to death can be considered a violation of Article 21 and will entitle such a prisoner to approach the court “to examine whether it was just and fair to allow the sentence to be executed.”Mercy petitions are presented to the President of India under Article 72 and to the Governor of the concerned state under Article 161 of the Constitution of India. A clarification issued by the Union home ministry in 1991 said that once the President decides on a mercy petition, the Governor of a state would not be empowered to do so. Therefore, all the mercy petitions sent directly to the President are directed to the state so that the concerned Governor can exercise his/her jurisdiction first.In the 1983 judgement, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court observed that a prolonged delay was an important consideration but several other factors must also be taken into account, and that the prisoner “cannot demand” as a matter of right that the death sentence be reduced to life imprisonment.“It is well established that a prisoner cannot be tortured or subjected to unfair or inhuman treatment. It is a logical extension of the self-same principle that the death sentence, even if justifiably imposed, cannot be executed if supervening events make its execution harsh, unjust or unfair. A prisoner, who has experienced living death for years on end, is entitled to invoke the jurisdiction of this Court,” the court ruled.Observing that a mercy petition by a prisoner must be disposed of as expeditiously as possible, the court recommended: “A self-imposed rule should be followed by the executive authorities that every such petition shall be disposed of within a period of three months from the date on which it is received.”Recent landmark judgementAnother Supreme Court judgement from 2014 by a three-judge bench is considered to be landmark on the point of delay in deciding mercy petitions as it crystallises the law further. This judgement has been followed by various high courts, including the Bombay High Court.The court held that if and when a petition is presented by a death-row convict, the concerned court would only “examine the circumstances surrounding the delay”, without getting into the merits of the case.Talking about a convict’s rights, the bench observed: “Keeping a convict in suspense while consideration of his mercy petition by the President for many years is certainly an agony for him/her. It creates adverse physical conditions and psychological stresses on the convict under sentence of death.”The bench then noted that India is signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, as well as to the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966. “Both these conventions contain provisions outlawing cruel and degrading treatment and/or punishment,” the court observed.The court further observed that though it was difficult to fix a time limit for a Governor and the President, “it is the duty of the executive to expedite the matter at every stage, viz., calling for the records, orders and documents filed in the court, preparation of the note for approval of the minister concerned, and the ultimate decision of the Constitutional authorities.”The CaseSantosh, Bunty, Swati, Guddu, Meena, Raja, Shraddha, Kranti, Gauri and Pankaj were the names of some of the kids the accused kidnapped. Of these, the murders of Santosh, Anjali, Shraddha, Gauri and Pankaj were proven.The sisters’ kidnapping spree allegedly started with an incident in 1990 where Renuka successfully managed to “salvage the situation” after being caught stealing because she had her child in her arms.Renuka was caught stealing a wallet at a temple in Kolhapur. But she managed to get out of the sticky situation by accusing the man whose wallet she had tried to snatch of lying. She had asked the gathered crowd how she could steal while carrying a child?This is when the sisters decided to kidnap children and use them as a cover when stealing.As per news reports, quoting the prosecution, on one of the occasions Anjana flung toddler Santosh to the ground when Seema was caught trying to snatch a bag. The sight of a bleeding child created a commotion allowing Seema to flee the scene.Narrating the brutality of the crimes committed by the accused, a division bench of the Bombay high court, while confirming the death sentence in September 2004, noted that in one of the instances, a child aged about one-and-a-half years, was killed by smashing his head against an iron bar at a bus stand. medium89019289The nature of injuries suffered by some children, the high court had observed, were so severe that only an extremely depraved mind could have perpetuated such brutalities. The judgement highlighted 42 injuries, including incision wounds on a child barely three or four years old. The bench noted that almost every child was killed brutally.While dismissing their appeal in August 2006, the Supreme Court observed that the nature of crime and the systematic way in which each child was kidnapped and killed showed how remorseless the accused were. The Supreme Court observed that the convicts were not likely to be reformed, and they were a menace to the society.The HC division bench of Justice Nitin Jamdar and Sarang Kotwal, on Tuesday, refused to set the sisters free despite them having spent 25 years in prison.