Step-sisters on death row: HC stays execution

KOLHAPUR SISTERS

MUMBAI: In a reprieve for step sisters Renuka Shinde and Seema Gavit, who have been given the death sentence for kidnapping 13 children and killing at least five of them, the Bombay high court on Wednesday temporarily stayed their execution and admitted their petition for hearing.

The division bench of justice VM Kanade and justice PD Kode posted the petition for hearing on September 9 and ordered the state government not to execute the sentence till then.

The court passed the order after public prosecutor Sandip Shinde assured that the step sisters would not be executed in the interregnum.

The petition filed by the step sisters seeks the commutation of the death sentence to life imprisonment, owing to the inordinate delay in executing the punishment.

The sisters were sentenced to death by HC in 2001. The sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court.

Public prosecutor Sandip Shinde contended that what the petition, in effect, seeks would amount to altering the order passed by the SC.

Relying on an SC judgement, Shinde said the petitions seeking the commutation of death sentences that have been upheld by the apex court should be filed Step sisters Renuka Shinde and Seema Gavit from Kolhapur were convicted in 2001 of kidnapping 13 children, forcing them to join a gang of thieves, in the 1990s

According to the case against them, they would force the children to beg and commit petty theft. After having sufficiently used the children, they brutally banged their heads against the wall and killed at least five.

only before the SC.

However, counsel for the step sisters, advocate Yug Mohit Chaudhary, said the extraordi nary jurisdiction of the HC does not get barred merely because the SC has upheld the sentence because the fresh petition has arisen because of the inordi nate and unexplained delay in the execution of the sentence.

The step-sisters had earlier filed a mercy petition before the President, which was rejected If the death sentence is upheld they would be the first women post-independence India to be executed.

Chaudhary submitted judge ments of the SC and of various high courts supporting his con tention.

The bench directed the state and the Centre to file their affi davits in response to the petition