Support death sentence of killer sisters: Maharashtra government to Bombay HC

Bombay High Court. File pic

The Maharashtra government told the Bombay High Court on Wednesday that it supported the death sentence awarded to sisters Renuka Shinde and Seema Gavit, convicted for the abduction of 14 children and murder of five of them between 1990 and 1996, despite the delay.

The sessions court had awarded them the capital punishment in 2001 for the heinous crime which had sent shockwaves across Maharashtra.

Public prosecutor Aruna Pai made the statement on behalf of the government before a bench of Justices Nitin Jamdar and S V Kotwal which had asked the state to put forth its stand while reserving order on the review petition last Saturday.

"Considering the seriousness of the crime, we support the death sentence in spite of delay. If the court is commuting it [to a life sentence], it should be till the end of their natural life," Pai said. Shinde and Gavit were tried for kidnapping 14 children and murdering five of them in Kolhapur. They were convicted in 2001. In 2004, the high court confirmed their death sentence and in 2006 the Supreme Court too upheld it.

But the duo, who have been in custody since October 1996, in 2014 filed a review petition in the high court seeking commutation of the death penalty, citing delay by the state in dealing with their mercy petitions.

The delay violated their fundamental right to life, they contended. HC had earlier remarked that there had been an "inordinate delay" of over eight years in deciding the mercy petitions. The HC will pass order on the petition in due course.

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