While sentencing gangster Abu Salem to life imprisonment in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case, the court for Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act cases here held that actual execution of the sentence is in the domain of the Union government.
Salem, arrested in Portugal in 2002 and extradited to India in 2005, had argued that he cannot be given a sentence longer than 25 years as per the extradition treaty between the two counties.
However, while awarding him life sentence TADA court judge G A Sanap said yesterday that the roles of judiciary and executive have been "demarcated by the Constitution", and award of punishment and execution are different aspects.
"Once the punishment is awarded by the court the execution falls within the exclusive domain, power and jurisdiction of the executive.
"The Union of India in its wisdom would be free to exercise its power in the matter of execution of sentence in consistence with the assurance given to Portugal," it held.
The judge also held that if Salem is to get any setoff for the time he spent in prison as an undertrial, the period should be counted from 2005, and not 2002, as sought by him, when he was held in Portugal.
"Solemn sovereign assurance given by the then deputy PM (to Portugal government) is plain and simple, death penalty is out of question, and if any other punishment is awarded as per the law by the Indian courts, the government of India would exercise its powers (for his early release)," the court said.
The court rejected Salem's claim that he had made the confession under duress. The confession was voluntary, the court said, adding that the "diabolic and gruesome crime committed in this case is bound to be unbearable burden, even to a hardened and dreaded criminal".
"It is necessary to mention that the crime committed by the accused is bound to always dwell in the heart and mind of the accused," the judge said.
"Even a hardened criminal, when confronted with such a crime and the effects and consequences is bound to melt, and such a person would start repenting," the court said.
The court, while convicting Salem and five others on June 16, had accepted the CBI's case that the gangster, one of the main conspirators in the blasts, was involved in transportation of smuggled arms and ammunition to Mumbai prior to the blasts and handed over weapons to actor Sanjay Dutt (convicted in the case in the earlier phase of trial).
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