A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka,
AhsanuddinAmanullah and Augustine George Masih said the dedicated cell shall be
responsible for the prompt processing of mercy petitions within the time frame
laid down by the respective governments.
"An officer-in-charge of the dedicated cell shall
be nominated by designation who shall receive and issue communications on
behalf of the dedicated cell. An official of the law and judiciary or justice
department of the state governments/Union Territories should be attached to the
dedicated cell so constituted," the bench said.
The directions
came as the court upheld an order of the Bombay High Court which commuted the
death penalty of two convicts in the 2007 Pune BPO employee gang-rape and
murder case to life term for a period of 35 years on the grounds of an
inordinate delay in executing them.
The top court
said all the prisons shall be informed about the designation of the
officer-in-charge of the dedicated cell along with his address and email ID.
"As soon as the superintendent of prison/officer
in-charge receives the mercy petitions, he shall immediately forward the copies
thereof to the dedicated cell and call for the details/information (like
criminal antecedents, economic condition, etc.) from the
officer-in-charge of the concerned police station and/or the concerned
investigating agency.
"On receipt of the request made by the jail
authorities, the officer-in-charge of the concerned police station shall be
under an obligation to furnish the said information to the jail authorities
immediately," the bench said.
As soon as mercy
petitions are received by the dedicated cell, copies of the pleas shall be
forwarded to the secretariats of the governor of the state or the President of
India, as the case may be, so that the secretariat can initiate action at their
end, it said.
"All correspondence, as far as possible, be
made by email, unless confidentiality is involved; and the state government
shall issue office orders/executive orders containing guidelines for dealing
with the mercy petitions in terms of this judgment," the bench said.