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-The Times of India
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Asking the government not to keep mercy petitions of death row convicts pending for a long time, Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir on Sunday said execution of death penalty should not be delayed. He also faulted the government for not informing Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru's family members before he was hanged.
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&quot;If a death penalty is to be awarded and it is there under the system, then the quicker things are done the better it is for everybody,&quot; Justice Kabir said at a press conference with law minister Ashwani Kumar after a meeting of chief ministers and chief justices of high courts on judicial reforms.
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The inordinate delay in disposing of mercy petitions has been a cause of concern with one such convict, Devender Pal Singh Bhullar, approaching the apex court. Citing the delay of 11 years in adjudicating his mercy plea by the President, Bhullar said his death penalty should be commuted to life imprisonment. The apex court has reserved its judgment in the case.
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Taking cue from Bhullar, several others whose mercy pleas were delayed moved the apex court, citing similar reasons. Among them are three convicted for the assassination of former PM Rajiv Gandhi and four aides of killed brigand Veerappan. The court has put off their cases till the Bhullar matter is decided.
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On Saturday, following a petition filed by a civil rights group, the SC stayed for four weeks the execution of eight convicts on similar grounds. The delay in carrying out death sentences in these cases ranged from three to 12 years.
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The parliamentary standing committee on home affairs had last month recommended that all mercy petitions should be decided by the President within three months.
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On the news of Guru's hanging reaching his family after two days, Justice Kabir said, &quot;The principle has always been that families have been informed about the execution.&quot;
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The decision to execute Guru was communicated to his family which reached them two days after he was hanged on February 9.
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The law minister, however, skirted the Guru issue and said he would rather &quot;comment on things that will happen in future and not what has happened in the past&quot;.
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Justice Kabir concurred with the law minister's views and said, &quot;The law minister has rightly said these are issues which have already taken place in the past and I think these things should not be raked up again today.&quot;
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The two-judge bench which stayed the execution of eight convicts on Saturday had also referred to the Guru case and said, &quot;It should not happen as it happened in the J&amp;K case (Afzal's hanging).&quot;
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The bench added, &quot;Intimation of the execution reached the relatives of the person (Afzal) after his hanging. That is bad. The relatives lost an opportunity to meet the condemned prisoner for one last time before his execution.&quot; 
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