Appearing for them, senior lawyer KTS Tulsi, a senior Congressman from Rajya Sabha, said that most of the convicts served between 16 and 18 years of prison terms and argued that in many cases the court sentence is questionable. Citing Supreme Court orders ordering Uttar Pradesh to consider granting remission to life sentencers who have served 14 years in prison, Tulsi said he awaited the decision on appeal against the 2017 Gujarat High Court ruling which commuted the death sentences of 11 people to life imprisonment and kept life imprisonment for others, these inmates should be released on bail.
A panel of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala asked Attorney General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Government of Gujarat, whether granting remission could be considered for these applicants who on average served more than 14 years of sentence.
Mehta said the crime was of a heinous nature: the train was stopped, petrol was poured from outside into the S6 carriage of the Sabarmati Express and it was set on fire, the conspirators and perpetrators then indulged in heavy stone blows to prevent passengers from escaping the burning train and prevent firefighters from reaching the sport resulting in the deaths of 59 people including women and children. “There cannot be a more heinous crime rarer than this,” he said, adding that the state has petitioned to have the death sentence reinstated for the 11 whose death sentences were commuted to life in prison by the HC.
Mehta said, “They are not entitled to remission as TADA has been invoked against them.”
A lone convict in the Godhra case, whose appeal is pending in SC, was released on bail as his wife is suffering from terminal cancer and there was no one to care for his two mentally challenged minor daughters.
The SC requested the petitioners’ lawyer and State Councilor Swati Ghildiyal to prepare a detailed table briefly containing their role and the allegations against them which were upheld by the HC. He posted a further hearing after three weeks.
