Limits to remission powers

The Supreme Court’s five-judge Constitution Bench delivered its judgment in Union of India vs V. Sriharan @ Murugan & Others on December 2, the last day of the tenure of Chief Justice of India Justice H.L. Between State and Centre The bench held unanimously that in situations falling within the jurisdiction of the Central government, it would assume primacy with regard to exercise of remission powers and that the process of consultation between the State government and the Centre over remission in a particular case would be interpreted as the requirement of concurrence by the latter. As the convicts stand acquitted insofar as offences under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act, or TADA, are concerned, it is the State government that can legitimately exercise remission powers, they said. Taking into consideration the case of the three Rajiv Gandhi assassination convicts, whose death sentences were commuted by the Supreme Court on the grounds of inordinate delay in considering their mercy petitions by the President, the dissenting judges said: “Each of the convicts having undergone about 23 years of actual imprisonment, there is definitely change in circumstances.” Therefore, they opined that it is permissible for the appropriate government to exercise the power of remission, even after the exercise of power by the President or Governor under Articles 72 and 161 respectively, while rejecting their mercy petitions or by the Supreme Court under Article 32, while commuting their death sentences to life imprisonments. As a consequence of this judgment, the Tamil Nadu government cannot release the convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case using its statutory powers of remission without the concurrence of the Central government.