Supreme Court on Friday stayed the execution of terrorism convict Devinder Singh Bhullar while it sought a report on his mental health, news reports said.
Bhullar was sentenced to death in 2001 for a 1993 car bombing in New Delhi that killed nine people.
While hearing a curative petition by his family — the last possible appeal — the Supreme Court said that Bhullar’s case could be affected by a landmark ruling earlier this month, NDTV reported.
On January 21, the Supreme Court commuted the death sentences of 15 convicts saying inordinate and inexplicable delays in carrying out executions were grounds for reducing a sentence.
The court also ruled that mental illness was a ground for reducing a death sentence to life in prison.
The Supreme Court had earlier rejected a petition on similar grounds in Bhullar’s case, which argued that he should not be hanged as he was mentally unwell, and that delays in his case amounted to inordinate cruelty.