JAGDISH Vs. STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner Jagdish was tried for the murder of his wife and five children. He was convicted by the trial court vide judgment dated 24.04.2006 and sentenced to death. He filed an appeal which was dismissed by the High Court on 27.06.2006 and the death sentence was confirmed. Thereafter, he filed Criminal Appeal in this Court which was dismissed and again death sentence was confirmed vide judgment dated 18.09.2009.

(2.) The petitioner filed mercy petition before the jail authorities on 13.10.2009, which came to be rejected by the President of India on 16.07.2014. The petitioner has filed Writ petition (Criminal) No. 197 of 2014 challenging the rejection of his mercy petition and the main ground is that there is a delay of almost 5 years in deciding the mercy petition and this itself is a ground to commute the death sentence to life imprisonment. Thereafter, the petitioner also filed Review Petition No. 591 of 2014 in which review of the judgment of this Court dated 18.09.2009 is sought both on merits and the question of sentence in Criminal Appeal No. 338 of 2007. Hence this matter is before this Bench.

(3.) At the outset we may note that we are not inclined to entertain the Review Petition on the merits of the case. Three courts have come to a concurrent finding of fact that it was the petitioner who murdered his wife and five children. We have gone through the written submissions filed by the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner and find no reason to take a view different from the one taken earlier.