DEENA ALIAS DEEN DAYAL LAL CHAND MISRA HAZAMOHIDEEN AMAR SINGH Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN this batch of Writ Petition, the petitioners were sentenced to death for the offence of murder under S. 302 of the Penal Code. They have nothing in common except that they committed murders and have been sentenced to death. The sentence of death imposed upon them has become final in the sense that the special leave petitions, appeals, Review Petition and mercy petitions filed by them have been dismissed, some of these more than once. The main question which has been raised by the petitioners in these Writ Petition relates to the validity of the mode of execution of the death sentence.

(2.) S. 354(5) of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides that :

(3.) THE learned Solicitor-General has raised a preliminary objection to these Writ Petition on the ground that the question which is sought to be argued by the petitioners is concluded by the judgment rendered by a Constitution bench of this court in Bachan Singh. It is urged that since the question is not res integra, it is not open to the petitioners to raise it, nor indeed any reason or justification for this court to entertain it. Learned Counsel for the petitioners, led by Shri R. K. Garg, answer this objection by contending that the only question which arose in Bachan Singh was whether it is constitutionally permissible to prescribe the sentence of death. It is urged on behalf of the petitioners that the question as regards the validity of S. 354(5) of the Code of Criminal Procedure was neither argued in Bachan Singh nor considered by the court.