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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Nearly one-third of mercy petitions commuted to life since Independence -Himanshi Dhawan

Nearly one-third of mercy petitions commuted to life since Independence -Himanshi Dhawan

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published Published on Oct 10, 2015   modified Modified on Oct 10, 2015
-The Times of India

NEW DELHI: About one -third of all mercy petitions in Independent India have been commuted to life imprisonment with a new report stating that 3534 of 5106 petitions were rejected while 1572 were considered favourably.

This is the first such estimate of mercy petitions filed since Independence and is based on several sources accessed by the Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) in its report Status of Mercy Petitions in India.

This comes close on the heels of controversial execution of 2012 Mumbai terror blast convict Yakub Memon earlier this year. A Law Commission report on death penalty has recommended striking off capital punishment from the statute books except in terror-related cases.

There are no official statistics on the actual number of mercy petitions filed by convicts on death row in independent India. To give an indication of the prevailing confusion: in 2013 the ministry of home affairs told the Supreme Court that over 300 mercy petitions were filed before the President by death row convicts between 1950 and 2009. However, the MHA had earlier informed the Rajya Sabha on November 29, 2006 that 1261 mercy petitions had been disposed of by the President between 1965 and 2006.

As on August 5, 2015 four mercy petitions are pending: two each with the President and the MHA.

The study also points out that while the government has issued guidelines in dealing with mercy petitions but in an analysis of 41 cases, it found that these guidelines were violated on several occasions. These included cases where the government withheld information related to medical records of a prisoner from the President, cases where the mercy petition was lost and one where the government continued to pursue the mercy petition of a prisoner even after his death in a prison.

"That there are no accurate records and gross violations in mercy petition cases shows the callousness of the government on the question of life and death and the respect for human dignity,'' said Suhas Chakma of ACHR.

Speaking on the report, former Law Commission chairperson Justice (retired) A P Shah said the government's guidelines and instructions need revision and the time for challenging mercy petitions before the President should be increased from a week to 90 days.

The Times of India, 10 October, 2015, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Nearly-one-third-of-mercy-petitions-commuted-to-life-since-Independence/articleshow/49295852.cms


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