HEADNOTE: The accused were convicted under s. 302 I.P.C. and sentenced to death by the trial court. The High Court con- firmed their conviction and 510 sentence.. This Court dismissed their special leave petitions/appeals and subsequent review petitions. Their mercy petitions to the President and/ or Governor were also rejected. Therefore, they approached this Court by way of Writ Petitions for setting aside the death sentence and substituting it by a sentence of life imprisonment on the ground of prolonged delay in the execution. They contended that the dehumanising factor of prolonged delay with the mental torture in confinement in jail had rendered the execution unconstitutional. In view of the conflicting decisions of this Court in T.V. Vaitheeswaran v. State of Tamil Nadu, [1983] 2 SCR 348 and Sher Singh & Ors. v. The State of Punjab, [1983] 2 SCR 582 and observations in Javed Ahmed Abdul Hamid Pawala v. State of Maharashtra, [1985] 2 SCR 8 on the question of delay, the writ petitions were referred to a five judges Bench. While a Bench of two Judges held in Vaitheeswaran's case that two years delay in execution of the sentence after the judgment of the trial court would entitle the condemned prisoner to ask for commutation of his sentence of death to imprisonment for life, a three Judges' Bench held, in Sher Singh's case, that delay alone is not good enough for commutation and two year's rule could not be laid down in the cases of delay and that the Court in the context of the nature of the offence and delay, could consider the question of commutation of death sentence. In Javed's case this Court observed that where the condemned man had suffered more than two years and nine months and was repenting and there was nothing adverse against him in the jail records, this period of two years and nine months with the sentence of death heavily weighing on his mind, would entitle him for commutation of sentence of death into imprisonment for life. The questions for consideration in these cases were: (a) whether prolonged delay in execution of the sentence of death rendered it inexecutable and entitled the accused to demand the alternate sentence of imprisonment for life, (b) what should be the starting point for computing this delay, (c) what were the rights of a condemned prisoner who had been sentenced to death but not executed, and (d) what could be the circumstances which should be considered along with the time that had been taken before the sentence is executed. On October 11, 1988 this Court dismissed all the writ petitions, except Writ Petition No. 1566 of 1985, which was partly allowed and the sentence of death awarded to the accused was substituted by the sentence of imprisonment. Over-ruling the decision in Vaitheeswarans case that two years' delay would make the sentence of death inexecutable, this Court held that undue long delay in execution of the sentence of death would entitle the condemned person to approach this Court under Article 32 but this Court would only examine the nature of delay caused and circumstances ensued after sentence was finally confirmed b