[Criminal Appeal No. 824 of 2013 arising out of S.L.P. (CRL.) No.8149 of 2012]. For a person found guilty of a capital offence and sentenced to death even by the highest Court of the land the options for reprieve are very limited. Once the conviction of the accused and the sentence awarded to him attains finality the prospects of judicial intervention recede further. Undeterred by these limitations the appellants who have been sentenced to death by hanging both under Section 302 and 364A of the Indian Penal Code have taken a chance with a petition seeking review of their conviction not because anything grossly erroneous is pointed out about the conclusions arrived at by the Courts that dealt with their cases but on the ground that Section 364A of the IPC which makes kidnapping for ransom an offence is itself unconstitutional being violative of Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution. Writ Petition (Crl.) D No. 15177 of 2012 was first filed in this Court by the petitioner, Vikram Singh @ Vicky for a declaration that Section 364A inserted in the Indian Penal Code by Act 42 of 1993 w.e.f. 22nd May 1993 is ultra vires the Constitution to the extent the same prescribes death sentence for any one proved guilty.
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