G Venkata Reddy case: SC refuses to suspend its own order

New Delhi, Oct 17 (UNI) The Supreme Court today declined to suspend the operation of its own order quashing the remission of the sentence granted to Andhra Pradesh's Congress activist G Venkata Reddy by then state Governor Sushil Kumar Shinde.

A Division Bench comprising Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice S H Kapadia also refused to either grant time to the convict to surrender or to fix a time period for the Governor to decide on his clemency petition.

The court told senior counsel Altaf Ahmed, who mentioned the matter this morning, ''Once we have set aside the Governor's order, you have to surrender.'' Reddy, the husband of a Congress MLA from the state, was convicted by the trial court in a murder case and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The trial court's order was upheld by the state High Court but his sentence was commuted to ten-year imprisonment by the Supreme Court after altering his conviction from section 302 IPC to 304 part 1 IPC (culpable homicide not amounting to murder).

Governor Shinde granted him remission in the sentence on the grounds that he was a good Congress worker. He, along with others, was involved in the murder of two Telgu Desam Party (TDP) workers.

The Governor's order was challenged in the Supreme Court by Epuru Sudhakar, son of the deceased.

The apex court, while setting aside the Governor's order last week, had held that the President and the Governor cannot exercise their powers of clemency on the grounds of religion, caste and political affiliation and doing so would be tantamount to utter disregard of the rule of law.

Such an exercise of power was subject to judicial review, held the court.

The court had also held that the pardon obtained by fraud or granted by mistake shall invite judicial review. The concept of rule of law was of paramount importance according to the Indian Constitution.

The judgement said the power of pardon or remission given to the President or the Governor under article 72 and 161 respectively cannot be exercised on extraneous, irrelevant or considerations of political expediency.

UNI AKS/SC SB DS1420