The Madras High Court has granted an interim stay on the death warrant issued to Manoharan, who was convicted for abducting and murdering minor siblings in Coimbatore, and given him six weeks’ time to file a mercy petition with the Governor.
The stay was granted on Tuesday after Manoharan moved the High Court alleging that he had not been given sufficient time to file a mercy petition with the Governor. Manoharan’s counsel argued that the death warrant issued was illegal since the convict has not exhausted all legal remedies available to him.
Reasonable time not given
According to the existing rules, mercy petitions from death penalty convicts must be sent to the Governor within seven days from receiving a copy of the order from the court. But, over time it was observed that the mercy petitions filed by convicts did not contain full details of the case and hence were not sufficient for the Governor to consider their cases.
In 2014, the Supreme Court had ruled that death penalty convicts must be given ‘reasonable time’ to file their mercy petitions.
Based on this order, among others, the counsel for Manoharan argued that Manoharan still has a few other legal options to pursue in his case. The counsel also submitted that due to these reasons, Manoharan’s death warrant issued by the Mahila Court was itself illegal and hence the warrant must be quashed.
Case background
The case dates back to October 2010 when Manoharan, then a cab driver, and his friend Mohanakrishnan kidnapped a 10-year-old girl and her 7-year-old brother. The accused then raped the girl and tortured the boy before killing them by drowning them in the Parambikulam Aliyar Project canal on October 29. The bodies of the children were recovered and the police arrested the duo two days later. Mohanakrishnan was shot dead by the police on November 9, 2010, after he allegedly tried to attack escorting officials while they were on their way to the scene of crime.
In 2012, the Coimbatore Mahila Court found Manoharan guilty of both the murders along with many other charges and sentenced him to death. He appealed against this order in the Madras High Court, which also upheld the death penalty. Challenging the High Court’s order, Manoharan approached the Supreme Court in 2014, which, in August 2019, upheld the death penalty. He then filed a review petition in the apex court, which was heard in November.
On November 7, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty by a majority judgment of 2:1. The bench, led by Justice RF Nariman, also described the offence as ‘shocking’, ‘cold-blooded’ and that it fell under the ‘rarest of rare’ category and dismissed Manoharan’s review petition.
The Mahila Court, hence, issued a death warrant to Manoharan and ordered that he be executed on December 2. However, Manoharan approached the High Court seeking a stay on the death warrant on the grounds that he was not given sufficient time to file a mercy petition.
The petition was heard by a bench consisting of Justice MM Sundresh and Justice RMT Teekaa Raman, who granted an interim stay on the death warrant issued by the Mahila Court. The court also directed the government of Tamil Nadu to file its response within four weeks on the matter.