Author: Harish V Nair
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: March 2, 2011
URL: http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/668378.aspx
The judge who sentenced Parliament attack
accused Afzal Guru to death in 2002 on Tuesday slammed the Centre for the
delay in carrying out the punishment.
Guru was found guilty of plotting the December 13, 2001 attack on Parliament
that left 14 dead, five of them terrorists.
Talking to HT on the day he demitted office, Justice Shiv Narayan Dhingra
of the Delhi high court, said the "delay of so many years on the part
of the Centre to hang him even after the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence
is inexplicable".
"The Centre, which blames the judiciary for pendency and backlogs of
lakhs of cases, is struggling with just a few mercy petitions for so many
years," said the judge, who heard the Parliament attack case as the presiding
officer of a special terrorism court.
The Supreme Court had in January 2006 dismissed Guru's appeal against the
death sentence after which he filed a mercy petition.
A convict on death row can seek clemency from the President, who acts on the
cabinet's advice to arrive at a decision. The plea is processed by the home
ministry.
Replying to a question in the Rajya Sabha
on February 23, home minister P Chidambaram had said Guru's plea had not been
forwarded to President Pratibha Patil.
The government has been under fire from the
opposition for "going slow" on Afzal's plea. "The Centre and
the President never had the occasion, reason or mandate by any procedure to
go into the specifics. They just needed to take a view on what basis the courts
had come to a conclusion on the punishment for the crime committed,"
he said.
