LexG. KRISHTA GOUD & J. BHOOMAIAH versus STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH & ORS.
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• '· . . ) • 73 G. KRISHTA GOUD & J. BHOOMAIAH v. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH & ORS. October 3, 1975 [V. R. KRISHNA !YER AND A. C. GUPTA, JJ.J Constitution of India, 1950, Art. 72-Scope of Presidenfs power-Po.wer of .-eview of Presidents' action by Courts. The petitioners were found guilty of murder by the court and sentenced to death. Their petition to the President of India for commuting the death sentence was rejected. Thereupon, they filed a writ petition in the High Court to quash the order of the President on the ground that he had not taken into account two factors, namely. (1) the offences were 'political'; and (2) the prevailing trends against death sentence. The High Court dismissed the peti- tion. Dismissing the petition for special leave to this Court. HELD : ( l) Assuming that the offences are political offenoes, under the Indian Penal Code, murder is murder an\! judges cannot re-write the law what- ever their views on death sentence. as citizens, may be, and interfere where they have no jurisdiction. [75 B-C; 77 HJ. (2) All power, however majestic the dignitary· wielding it may be, shall be exercised in good faith with intelligent and informed care and honestly for the public weal. But, when the Constitution has empowered the nation's highest Executive as the repository of the clemency power. the Court cannot intervene and judicial review is excluded by implication. Since, the conten- tion, in this case, that equality is denied in the matter of sentence because some get the benefit of clemency while others do not. has no foundation. nor is there any trace of despotism involved. it is not necessary (o examine in whom the remedy _lies if arbitrary exercise of public power is definitely established in a particular case. [7 6 P..-,H]. [The rejection, however,. of one clemency petition does not exhaust the power of the President or the Governor. Therefore, the petitioners may urge the circumstances pressed before this Court for clemency again before the ·President.] [77 I>---E]. · CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Petition for Special Leave to Appeal (Crl) No. 840 of 1975. From the judgment and order dated lsl August, 1975 of the Andhra Pradesh High Court at Hyderabad in Criminal Writ Petition No. 4168 of 1975. R. K. Garg, S. C. Agarwala, V. J. Francis and Ram Panjwani, for the petitioners . P. Ram Reddy and P. P. Rao, for the· respondent. ORDER OF THE COURT The young petitioners held to be murderers by the Court and A B c D F G sentenced to death, having regard to the blood-curdling ruthlessness H -0f the guilt, crossed over from the jurisdiction of courts to the cle- mency zone of the President under Art. 72. This last chance-to- Iive appeal for mercy by men who mercilessly · killed, allegedly A B c D E F G H 74 SUPREME COURT REPORTS (1976] 2 S.C.R. driven by the humanist urge for catalysing social justice through terrorist technology, found no compassionate response. The refusal of the President to commute the death sentence rusued the petitioners back to the High Court to save their lit:e through the Court's writ. Rejection by that Court has compelled them to seek judicial sanc- tuary in the Supreme Court as the final scene of the Fifth Act of the tragic drama is drawing near. Shri Garg has grounded his arguments on two socio-legal b<isics. A politically motivated offence committed by the two frustrated men who were disenchanted by the diehard injustice of massive suffering and suppression, to shock and shake the custodians of the status quo ante, stands on a separate footing from the common run of crimes and the root humanity of their ruthless inhumanity, though perti- nent, was blindly brushed aside by the President. Thereby he ex- cluded a crucially conscientious consideration from an essentially compassionate jurisdiction which rendered the rejection o~ com- mutation illegal and unconscionable. Assuming a measure of vali- dity in this socio-political submission, can the Court-even the Supreme Court-rush in where the Constitution has made the Presi- dent the repository of a benignant life-or-death power, non-justiciable without breaching the dykes of Art. 72 (or Art. 151, if it be the Governor). and non-accountable except to the good conscience of the top Executive? Justice is not always channelled through. a Judge and what is out of bounds for and not enforceable through regular courts does not, ipso ju
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