The Bombay High Court commuted the two sisters' death sentences to life imprisonments on Tuesday, nearly seven and a half years after it stayed the execution of two gallows-bound Kolhapur sisters Renuka Shinde and Seema Gavit whose mercy petitions had been rejected by then President Pranab Mukerjee. The court chastised State Government officers for the excessive delay in deciding on their mercy petitions. A HC bench of Justices Nitin Jamdar and Sarang Kotwal attributed the commutation of the two convicts from capital punishment to life in prison to the delay of "seven years, ten months, and 15 days" in deciding the mercy petitions of two Kolhapur sisters who were convicted for the murder of six children. "when the mercy petitions by and on behalf of the Petitioners were filed, the legal position that unexplained and egregious delays in the disposition of mercy petitions could result in the death sentence being commuted was already in place." Despite this legal position, the mercy petitions were not considered for seven years, ten months, and fifteen days," the two Judges stated, commuting the death sentences of two Kolhapur sisters to life imprisonments. “Though the procedure for deciding the mercy petitions mandates speed and expediency, the State machinery showed indifference and laxity at each stage of processing the files. That it took seven years only for the movement of files such a grave issue is unacceptable when electronic communications were available to be used. The argument of the State that the Petitioners should be executed even today overlooks that it is the dereliction of its officers that is the cause for commuting the death sentence to that of life imprisonment,” the Judges noted. That is so because the legal position is that a sentence for imprisonment for life is for the remainder of the convict's life unless the Competent Authority remits the remaining sentence," the bHC bench noted in rejecting the petitioners' request to be released on bail immediately after serving 25 years in prison. The Petitioners have committed horrible acts. The Petitioners' savagery in murdering innocent children goes beyond words to condemn. Renuka and her mother, Seema Mohan Gavit, were found guilty of murdering only six children and sentenced to death on June 21, 2001. The Bombay High Court eventually found on September 9, 2004, that the prosecution could prove conclusively the two sisters' involvement in the death of five children – Santosh (2), Anjali alias Pinky (2), Shraddha alias Rani alias Bhagyashree (one year, nine months), and Kranti (9 years) Bhavana ( 1 year, six months). Following that, on August 31, 2006, a two-judge Supreme Court bench — Justices K G Balakrishnan and G P Mathur – confirmed the two Kolhapur sisters' death sentences. The three accused – the mother and two daughters – initially kept quiet, but after Kiran's statement, Renuka spilled the beans, exposing the grisly details of nearly 40 kidnappings-turned-murders, however the police were only able to prove 13 abductions and 5 killings. Anjana Gavit died in jail during the pendency of the trial a year after her arrest, but her two children evaded the hangman's rope on the day of their scheduled hanging on August 19, 2014, and will now spend their days at Yerwada central prison in Pune.