Fix a time frame for disposal of mercy petitions: Digvijay Singh

Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh said that there was an urgent need to fix a time limit for disposal of mercy petitions filed before the President by convicts on the death row.

"The absence of such a time limit for the disposal of mercy petitions leads to a number of unwanted and undesirable things which will be eliminated once they were decided within a fixed time frame," Singh told Press Trust of India.

He said it appears that there was something wrong with either the Union home ministry or the president's house because of which no decision is taken on mercy petitions and they remain hanging for a long time.

The senior Congress leader said, of late the BJP has been charging the Congress with dilly-dallying on the issue of executing the death sentence to Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.

He said if his memory serves him right, not a single mercy petition was decided even when senior BJP leader, LK Advani was the home minister for six long years.

Singh said even mercy petitions of the killers of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi had not been decided yet.