The Bombay High Court commuted the death sentence of sisters Seema Gavit and Renuka Shinde to a life sentence citing the Maharashtra government’s inordinate delay and indifference in dealing with their mercy petition. The sisters were sentenced to death in 2001 for kidnapping 13 children and killing five of them between 1990 and October 1996.
The sisters, together with their mother Anjana, were charged with kidnapping 13 children in order to force them to beg between 1990 and 1996. The kids who refused to beg were slain. In 2001, the defendants were found guilty and punished. The death sentence was upheld by the Bombay High Court in 2004 and the Supreme Court in 2006.
In 2008, they petitioned the governor with a mercy plea, which was denied in 2012-13. Following this, they petitioned the President for pardon, which was likewise denied in 2014. The sisters eventually petitioned the High Court, claiming that the decision on their mercy appeal had been delayed and their death sentence must be commuted to that of life imprisonment.
The bench stated that the government authorities, notably the state government, had behaved rashly, delaying procedure while knowing the seriousness of the matter, and failing to carry out the women’s death sentences despite the President’s rejection of their mercy applications over seven years ago.
“Though the procedure for deciding mercy petitions mandates speed and expediency, the state machinery showed indifference and laxity at each stage,” the court observed.
The state apparatus, according to the bench of Justices Nitin Jamdar and Sarang Kotwal, displayed carelessness. “The position of law that an unexplained delay in disposal of mercy petitions may result in commuting the death sentence was already holding the field when mercy petitions by the petitioners were made,” the bench said.
The petitioners asserted that the executive, comprising the Governor of Maharashtra, the state government, the Union Home Ministry, and the President of India, is solely responsible for the delay in determining their mercy requests.
The Kolhapur sisters have remained in detention for nearly 25 years as of December 15, 2021, and have thus exercised their basic right under Article 21 through a petition before the judiciary.