In January 2014 , a three-judge panel headed by Chief Justice of India Palanisamy Sathasivam commuted sentences of 15 death row convicts , ruling that the " inordinate and inexplicable delay is a ground for commuting death penalty to life sentence " . Supreme Court of India ruled that delays ranging from seven to 11 years in the disposal of mercy pleas are grounds for clemency . The same panel also passed a set of guidelines for the execution of a death row convict , which includes a 14-day gap from the receipt of communication of the rejection of the mercy petition to the scheduled execution date , after going through the '' Shatrughan Chauhan vs. Union of India '' case . Subsequently , in February 2014 , Supreme Court commuted death sentence of Rajiv Gandhi 's killers on the basis of 11-year delay in deciding on mercy plea . It was subsequently commuted to life imprisonment . In March 2014 , Supreme Court of India commuted death sentence of Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar , convicted in a 1993 Delhi bombings case , to life imprisonment , both on the ground of unexplained/inordinate delay of eight years in disposal of mercy petition and on the ground of insanity/mental illness/schizophrenia
Rajiv Gandhi 's killers
Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi
Capital punishment in India