The Supreme Court would decide whether state governments also have power of remission in cases where central agencies like Central Bureau of Investigation are the prosecutor.
The Supreme Court yesterday reserved its verdict on constitutional issues arising out of Tamil Nadu government's decision to set free the convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, including the power of states to remit sentences.
A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice HL Dattu would authoritatively deal with questions raised by the smaller bench while staying the state government's decision to set free seven convicts in the sensational case.
The Court would decide whether state governments also have power of remission in cases where central agencies like Central Bureau of Investigation are the prosecutor.
"The issue of such a nature has been raised for the first time in this court, which has wide ramification in determining the scope of application of power of remission by the executives, both the Centre and the State."
The Court had said the Constitution bench would decide whether the sentence of a prisoner, whose death penalty has been commuted to life, can be remitted by the government.
Another issue for the constitution bench to decide is whether a special category of sentence could be provided for cases where death penalty might be substituted by imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term in excess of 14 years and to put that category beyond application of remission.
The bench will also decide whether the Union or the State has primacy over the subject matter enlisted in concurrent list of 7th Schedule of the Constitution for exercise of power of remission.
During the hearing, Centre said asserted that the killers of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi did not deserve any mercy as the assassination was the result of a conspiracy involving foreign nationals.
The Tamil Nadu government has said that the states have power to grant remission under the law and trashed accusations that its decision to release seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case was "political and arbitrary".
The Centre has petitioned the Court against the Jayalalitha government's decision to release the seven convicts, whose death sentence has been commuted to life by the Supreme Court. The seven convicts are Robert Pious, V Sriharan, Santhan, Jaya Kumar, Arivu, Nalini, and Ravichandran.