The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Central government to decide by March 18, 2025, on the mercy petition of the death row convict Balwant Singh Rajoana.
Rajoana, who was convicted and awarded a death sentence for killing the late Punja Chief Minister Beant Singh, has sought the commutation of his death sentence.
Asking the Central government to decide on the mercy petition by March 18, the next date of the hearing, a bench of Justice BR Gavai, Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice KV Viswanathan said that failing which they will decide on Rajoana’s plea for the commutation of death sentence on merits.
“We will grant you time by way of last chance. Either you take a decision or we will hear on merits,” the bench said.
Seeking four to six weeks to decide on Rajoana’s mercy petition, at the outset of the hearing, the Solicitor General Tushar Mehra told the bench that the matter is “sensitive” as it’s related to killing of a sitting Chief Minister
However, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi appearing for Rajoana pointed out that the matter is pending for the last five-years.
In the hearing, on November 18, 2025, the Supreme Court had put on hold its order asking the secretary to the President of India Droupadi Murmu to place the mercy petition of Rajoana before the President with a request to consider it within two weeks.
The said order, which was initially passed earlier in the morning of November 18, 2024, was put in abeyance after Solicitor General Mehta had sought time to consider and decide on Rajoana’s mercy petition.
Solicitor General Mehta had urged the court not to give effect to its order passed earlier in the day as there are “sensitivities” involved in the issue and that it be heard on Friday – November 22, 2024.
In the last hearing on November 25, 5the Solicitor General sought still more time to decide on the mercy petition.
The top court was hearing the plea of petitioner death-row convict Rajoana for release from jail. On November 4, the top court had said that they would only consider Rajoana’s plea seeking release only after hearing the central and the Punjab governments.
Rajoana, a sympathizer of the militant group Babbar Khalsa, has sought the commutation of his death sentence to life imprisonment on the grounds of ‘extraordinary’ and ‘inordinate delay’ of one year and four months in deciding his mercy petition, which remains pending before the President of India.
Rajoana has sought consequential release on the grounds that he has undergone a total sentence of 28 years and eight months as of date, of which 17 years have been served as a death row convict in an 8 x 10 capital punishment cell, including 2.5 years in solitary confinement.
The convict, Balwant Singh Rajoana, was sentenced to death for the murder of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh who died in a bomb explosion in Chandigarh on August 31, 1995.