Death Penalty cases: After plea by Project 39A, Supreme Court to examine allowing defence to interview accused for comprehensive report

In a significant development on death penalty sentencing cases, the Supreme Court of India has registered a case to examine how courts dealing with death sentence can procure a comprehensive analysis about the accused and the crime, especially the mitigating circumstances so that the concerned court can decide whether death sentence needs to be imposed or not [Irfan @ Bhayu Mevati v. State of Madhya Pradesh]..A Bench of Justices UU Lalit, Ravindra Bhat and PS Narasimha observed that currently the probation officer undertakes this task, but many a time, the analysis and the report by the probation officer does not consider the complete profile of the accused and may be dependent upon the interviews which the probation officer may have had almost at the fag end of the trial.Hence, the Court opined that aside from the probation officer, if someone from the defence side is given the facility of interviewing the accused right at the beginning of the trial, a comprehensive analysis can then be projected at a stage when the matter is considered from the standpoint of whether death sentence be imposed or not.To consider these aspects, the Court converted an application filed by anti-death penalty body, Project 39A of National Law University, Delhi into a separate writ petition.It also issued notice to Attorney General KK Venugopal and the Member Secretary of the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA), in the matter.Further, it appointed Senior Advocate Siddhartha Dave, assisted by Advocate K Parameshwar, as Amicus Curiae in the matter..The Court was hearing a plea by one Irfan@ Bhayu Mevati (appellant) challenging the death penalty imposed on him by the trial court and confirmed by the Madhya Pradesh High Court. Project 39A filed an application in the matter seeking permission for a mitigation investigator to visit the appellant in prison and interview him for the purpose of collecting information for making arguments on his sentencing.The Court allowed the prayer and granted permission to CP Shruthi, a mitigation investigator associated with Project 39A to visit Central Jail, Ujjain and conduct in-person interviews, with Irfan. For the sake of confidentiality these interviews will be conducted in a separate space without any prison staff/official being at earshot distance of the applicant, the Court said.The Court also granted permission to Shruthi to record the interviews conducted by means of an audio recorder in the separate interviewing space, or alternatively, to allow a person nominated by Shruthi to accompany her to take notes during the interview.The Bench further directed Central Jail, Ujjain to grant Shruthi access to all records pertaining to the applicant including but not limited to medical records, jail conduct, work done or education pursued in Central Jail, Ujjain etc..[Read Order]