A 43-year old convict, whose death sentence was commuted to life through a Presidential pardon, shall continue to remain in jail for the rest of his life as expressely stated in the Presidential order of 2012, the Madras High Court has made it clear.
The convict A. Sheik Meeran’s sister, A. Nisha had filed a habeas corpus petition in the Madras High Court’s Madurai Bench hoping to clear a legal hurdle that may stand in his way in the future.
Disposing of the petition, a Division Bench of Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and V.M. Velumani ordered that the punishment imposed on him for hacking a gangster to death inside a court hall at Nagercoil in 1997 and another life sentence imposed on him in 2003 in a different murder case shall run concurrently and not consecutively. The order was passed despite an Additional Public Prosecutor’s contention that no purpose would be served in passing such an order.
The Division Bench said that it was inclined to pass the order, as sought for by the sister of the convict, since Section 427(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure states that if a person already undergoing a sentence of imprisonment for life happened to be convicted by a court of law in any other criminal case and sentenced to undergo imprisonment either for a fixed term or for life, the subsequent sentence should run concurrently with the previous sentence.
Further, the judges pointed out that a single judge of the High Court had also passed a similar order in July 2014 with respect to Meeran’s co-convict C. Selvam and hence the benefit could not be denied to the former when both of them were similarly placed and had been convicted and sentenced together in both the cases. They, however, made it clear that the petitioner’s brother shall remain in prison for the whole of his natural life and there shall be no remission of sentence as ordered by the President.
The petitioner’s counsel pointed out that a Sessions Court at Tirunelveli had on October 5, 1998 awarded death sentence to Meeran, Selvam and one Radhakrishnan for hacking the gangster to death inside a court hall, dragging his body till the compound wall of the court in full public view and hurling a country bomb on the court campus before taking to their heels. The death penalty was confirmed by the High Court as well as the Supreme Court in April and June 1999 respectively.
In the meantime, a Sessions Court in Kanyakumari convicted Meeran and Selvam in another murder case and sentenced them to life imprisonment on January 6, 2003. However, the Kanyakumari court did not mention, as required under Section 427(1) of Cr.P.C., as to whether the sentence ordered by it should run concurrently or consecutively because the petitioner’s brother and his co-convict were then facing the threat of execution by hanging and their mercy petitions were pending with the President.
