Supreme Court today ruled that years spent behind the bars during prolonged judicial proceedings cannot be a ground for converting death sentence to life imprisonment.

It also ruled that review plea of condemned prisoners must be given an open court hearing.

The five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court said that limited oral hearing for an outer limit of 30 minutes be granted in all death sentence cases.

In a majority verdict of four to one, the apex court also made it clear that a condemned convict, whose review plea has been dismissed and sentence is still to be executed, can approach the apex court for re-opening of his case.

It however added that in those cases where even a curative petition has been dismissed, it would not be proper to reopen such matters.

Turning down the plea that death cases be heard by five judge bench, the court, however, said that such cases must be heard by at least three Judges of the Supreme Court.

The apex court passed the order on a batch of petitions filed by six death convicts, including Mohammed Arif and 1993 Mumbai serial blast convict Yakub Abdul Razak Memon, who had pleaded the court that their review pleas should have been decided in open court hearing.