SC seeks status of mercy pleas from Centre, states

Anguished at undue delay in disposing of the plea for clemency filed by convicts languishing in different jails of the country, the Supreme Court on Wednesday directed all the states and the Union government to submit by February 25 the details of mercy petitions filed, pending and decided either by the governors or the president of India.

The court’s direction came during the hearing of a law suit by death convict Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar challenging dismissal of his plea by the president after a long wait of 11 years.
At least 18 mercy petitions are pending before President Pratibha Devisingh Patil. However, Patil during the last three decades commuted death sentences of 23 death row prisoners to life imprisonment.

On February 9 last, she accepted the clemency petition filed by Sushil Murmu in 2004. He was convicted for giving ‘bali’ (sacrifice) of a nine-year-old boy in Jharkhand for his own prosperity,
She has however rejected the petitions of five convicts including Rajiv Gandhi’s three killers and Davinder Pal Singh and Mahedra Nath Das of Assam who had murdered a transporter Harakanta Das.

The Centre has justified the delay saying “processing a mercy petition is purely a Constitutional process which takes time.”