India v. V. Sriharan Murugan, December 2015 One of the questions involved the validity of the special category of sentence as created by Swamy Shraddhanada @ Murli Manohar Mishra v. State of Karnataka, July 2008. The court held that the special category of sentence created by Swamy Shraddhanada @ Murli Manohar Mishra v. State of Karnataka, July 2008 was valid in law. It further added that such a sentence could only be imposed by the high courts or the Supreme Court. However, the constitutional powers of remission under Articles 72 and 161 would be unaffected by such a sentence. The dissenting judges, Lalit and Sapre, speaking through Lalit held that such a sentence was not valid in law as it would amount to legislating a new sentence, and it was also trenching into the domain of the executive. Mental illness and death penalty The law provided for certain persons to be exceptions to the liabilities imposed by Criminal law. The law assumes persons such as children below the age of 7 and insane persons to be incapable of understanding the consequences of their act and therefore does not hold them accountable for any of the offences. The rule further extends to death penalty as well, i.e. persons who are insane and declared so by a competent court, cannot be given death penalty. The legality of the death sentence and its relation with the mental illness of the accused was discussed in various cases by the Indian Judiciary. In the case of Devender Pal Singh Bhullar (Navneet Kaur v. NCT of Delhi, March 2014), the Court commuted the death sentence of the convict on the ground of inordinate delay in the execution of sentence and mental health problems faced by the petitioner. In the case of Shatrughan Chauhan v. Union of India, January 2014, while discussing various other supervening circumstances which would lead to the sentence of death being commuted, it was held that mental illness of the prisoner would be a factor which would lead to a commutation and that no mentally ill person may be executed. In Accused X v. State of Maharashtra, April 2019, the Supreme Court in this case recognized post conviction mental illness as a mitigating factor to convert death penalty to life imprisonment. The SC noting that there appear to be no set disorders or disabilities for evaluating the 'severe mental illness' laid down 'test