1996 Lajpat Nagar blasts: Supreme Court hands down life sentence without remission to 4 convicts

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Lajpat Nagar market in New Delhi, the Supreme Court Thursday handed down life sentence to four convicts for the remainder of their lives without remission, saying they executed an «international conspiracy» to «destabilise» India by carrying out the blast. The top court, which dwelt in detail on the severity of the offence, however, did not agree with the vehement plea of the prosecution that the convicts be awarded the death penalty for snuffing out innocent lives in the blast on May 21, 1996.

The bench comprising Justices B R Gavai, Vikram Nath and Sanjay Karol, in its 190-page judgement, spared the four convicts — Mohd Naushad, Mirza Nissar Hussain alias Naza, Mohd Ali Bhatt alias Killey and Javed Ahmed Khan — the gallows on the ground of delay. It said though the offence «falls within the category of rarest of rare cases», the delay of 27 years in all and 14 years in the trial court in deciding the case are the mitigating circumstances in favour of the convicts.

«The incident took place on May 21, 1996, i.e., approximately 27 years ago; the Trial Court awarded the sentence of death on April 22, 2010, i.e., more than 13 years ago; and the present accused acting at the behest of the principal conspirators; are all mitigating circumstances in not awarding the sentence of death even though it falls within the category of rarest of rare cases. »In view of the severity of the offence resulting in deaths of innocent persons and the role played by each accused person, all these accused persons are sentenced to imprisonment for life, without remission, extending to natural life.