The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Freedom eludes convicts in bus-burning case

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Aug 16, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Freedom eludes convicts in bus-burning case

By A. Saye Sekhar

VIJAYAWADA, AUG. 15. Independence Day did not bring freedom to these two convicts. On hearing the State Government's decision to release some prisoners, Gantela Vijayavardhana Rao and Sathuluri Chalapathi Rao, eagerly waited for the big day.

They "mistook" that they too would be freed from the confines of the four walls of the Central Prison in Rajahmundry. It was only on Independence Day that they came to know that they were not among the "lucky 332" who were set free.

Vijayavardhana Rao and Chalapathi Rao torched an APSRTC bus near Chilakaluripet in Guntur district on March 8, 1993. As many as 23 persons were charred to death in this ghastly incident. The duo was sent to remand on March 24, 1993. They were sentenced to death by the II Additional District and Sessions Judge of Guntur on Sepember 7, 1995, which was confirmed by the High Court. After a protracted legal battle, the Supreme Court also upheld the judgment dismissing the appeals filed by the duo.

Petitions

Human rights activists, including renowned political scientist, Rajani Kothari and George Fernandes, made fervent appeals seeking clemency to the then President of India, Shankar Dayal Sharma, who declined to grant mercy. Interestingly, the rights activists had Mahaswetha Devi sign the mercy petition and hand it over to Dr. Sharma, for a second time on March 28, 1997, when the former was taking theJnanpeeth Award from South African legend, Nelson Mandela, in Delhi. Dr. Sharma presided over the function.

Noted lawyer, Nitya Ramakrishna, lost no time in approaching the then Chief Justice of India and obtained an order constituting a Division Bench at the residence of a Supreme Court judge at the dead of that night.

Clemency

Incidentally, the two should have been hanged the next morning. She contended before the Division Bench, which heard her at 11 p.m., that the second mercy petition was handed over to the President and the same should be treated as "under consideration of the President" and, therefore, the hanging should be stayed. The Division Bench granted a stay. The decision of the division bench was communicated to the jail authorities overnight with the timely intervention of the Supreme Court Registrar and the then Chief Secretary of the State Government.

Meanwhile, the rights activists prevailed upon the then Prime Minister, H.D. Deve Gowda, and the Union Cabinet granted an indefinite stay on the execution of the two. Later, the then President, K.R. Narayanan, granted clemency and commuted the death penalty into a lifer in May 1998. Ever since, Vijayavardhana Rao and Chalapathi Rao have been serving the punishment in the Rajahmundry central jail.

Jail term

When contacted, the Superintendent of Central Prison in Rajahmundry, Sainatha Reddy, told The Hindu that commutation of death penalty was in itself a relief. And, they were not actually entitled to any additional relief. Therefore, they would have to serve the actual 14-year term of life imprisonment fully. Even if the remand period were to be taken into consideration, the real term of their punishment would come to an end only on March 25, 2007. If the Government decided that the punishment was effective from the date of judgment, their jail term would end on September 8, 2009, for there was no mention in the court verdict that their remand period should be treated as period of punishment.

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