President makes it clear: no hurry to reject mercy petitions

President Patil inherited a pile of 28 pending mercy petitions,involving over 40 persons on death row in various prisons.

Following a series of reviews,Home Minister P Chidambaram sought a meeting on the subject with the President but according to officials in Rashtrapati Bhavan and the Home Ministry,it ended with a clear signal from the President—that the onus of clearing the backlog is not on her.

While officials in Rashtrapati Bhavan describe the formula arrived thereafter as a “breakthrough” on the death penalty imbroglio,top officials in the Home Ministry are not so elated.

Following the meeting between the Home Minister and the President it was decided that beginning with the oldest mercy petition,the Home Ministry would send a formal letter to Rashtrapati Bhavan asking for “recall” of the file.

Once the mercy petition was re-examined in the Home Ministry,the case would be sent back to Rashtrapati Bhavan,either with a request for the death penalty to be commuted to life imprisonment or with a reiteration that the case was fit for death penalty.

Officials said the file movements have commenced as per the proposal but even as the fourth mercy petition is shortly being sent to Rashtrapati Bhavan,a clear pattern has emerged.

While the President concurred with the recommendation of the Home Ministry and commuted the death penalty in the first case—-that of murder convict R Govindasamy into life-term without parole—Rashtrapati Bhavan is yet to return the next two files of mercy petitions where the Home Ministry’s opinion remained unchanged in favour of death penalty.

Home Ministry sources say that the fourth “reconsidered” case being cleared by them is also one of commutation and therefore they expect the file to be returned to them with the ascent of the President.

While the President has no guidelines or deadlines on the subject of clearing mercy petitions,the last President who diligently performed the sovereign function (bestowed under Article 72 of the Constitution),was the late Shankar Dayal Sharma,who cleared all pending files during his tenure. His successor,the late K R Narayanan,didn’t clear any file during his five-year term from July 1997 to July 2002.

President Patil’s predecessor APJ Abdul Kalam cleared just two cases — turning down the mercy plea of Dhananjoy Chatterjee of West Bengal,who had been sentenced to be hanged to death for the rape and murder of 14-year-old Hetal Parekh,and granting mercy to one Kheraj Ram,whose death sentence was changed to life.

Thus,a majority of the 27 cases now pending with President Patil are a legacy of her predecessors. Among the cases where the President has to take a final decision are the mercy pleas of three assassins of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Khalistan Liberation Force terrorist Davinder Singh Bhullar who was convicted for killing nine persons and injuring 31,including the then Youth Congress chief M S Bitta,in a bomb blast in 1993,four associates of slain forest brigand Veerappan,who were convicted for killing 21 policemen in 1993,and four Punjab residents who murdered 17 persons in a village in Amritsar in 1991.