The Kerala High Court the other day ordered mitigation studies on the death sentence references of Nino Mathew who was convicted in the Attingal twin murder case and of Muhammed Ameer-ul-Islam who was convicted in the Dalit law student murder case.
The court appointed two mitigation investigators associated with Project 39A, a research and legal aid centre at the National Law University, Delhi to assist the court with the process of sentencing, particularly to arrive at a conclusion on whether the cases warrant death penalty for the convicts.
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The two convicts were sentenced to death by trial courts and their appeals against their conviction and sentence as well as the references to confirm their death sentence are currently pending before the high court.
Usually, mitigating circumstances in death sentence cases are considered after the persons are convicted, or after their conviction is confirmed by the appellate court.
However, in these cases, a division bench comprising Justice Alexander Thomas and Justice C Jayachandran ordered the commencement of mitigation studies for Nino Mathew and Ameer-ul-Islam even before the hearing of their appeals had begun
The court said that if mitigation studies are conducted only after the conviction is affirmed by the appellate court, then there will be a lot of unnecessary delay in the administration of justice.
The two cases placed before the Bench were to confirm the death sentence awarded to Nino Mathew, who was convicted by a trial court in the 2014 twin murder case in Kerala’s Attingal, and to confirm the death sentence awarded to Muhammed Ameer-ul-Islam by a trial court for the rape and murder of a Dalit law student of the Ernakulam Government Law College, in 2016.
