Bombay high court gives Maharashtra government time to reply to sisters' plea on death row

The Bombay high court has granted two more weeks to the state government to file an affidavit in reply to a petition filed by the two sisters from Kolhapur, who are urging that their death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment.

The mercy petitions of Renuka Shinde and Seema Gavit, who were sentenced to death in 2001 for kidnapping 13 children, and killing nine of them between 1990 and October 1996, were rejected by the president recently.
Justices VM Kanade and PD Kode had earlier given the state two weeks. However, when the matter came up for hearing on Friday, the state requested more time.

The two sisters have contended that the president had taken more than five years to decide on their mercy petitions, when such a plea should have been disposed of within three months. On this ground alone, their death sentence may be commuted to life term, the duo prayed.