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Vinay Sharma v. Union of India

Writ Petition (Criminal) · 2020 INSC 184Decided 14 Feb 2020
Writ Petition (Criminal) No. 65 of 2020
Justice R. Banumathi · Justice Ashok Bhushan · Justice A.S. Bopanna

Background

Vinay Sharma, one of the men sentenced to death in the 2012 Delhi gang-rape and murder case, filed a writ petition after the President of India rejected his mercy petition. He challenged the rejection on several grounds: that key documents (medical records and a social background report) were allegedly not placed before the President; that senior officials hadn't properly reviewed his file; that he had been kept in illegal solitary confinement; and that public statements by ministers had biased the decision.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court directly examined the government's actual case files relating to the mercy petition. It found that all relevant documents, trial and appellate court judgments, medical reports, the social investigation report, and family economic details, had in fact been placed before the President before the decision, and that the Delhi Lieutenant Governor and Home Minister had duly signed off on the recommendation. Based on the jail authorities' affidavit, the Court also found he had not been held in illegal solitary confinement but in a single room for security reasons, with regular access to other inmates. Applying the narrow standard for reviewing presidential pardon decisions (only available for non-application of mind, bias, irrelevant considerations, or arbitrariness), the Court found none of these grounds made out and dismissed the writ petition.

Lesson Learnt

Courts' power to review a President's or Governor's decision on a mercy petition is deliberately very narrow: it is not a fresh appeal on guilt or sentence, and will only succeed if there is concrete proof that relevant material was ignored, the decision was biased, or it was made without any real application of mind.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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