Contrasting ways to handle mercy petitions

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SUBHASH CHANDRA AGRAWAL

11 February, 2011

PARTIAL FILE notings provided by President’s Secretariat on CIC directions on President of India turning death-sentence of eight convicts into life-imprisonment reveals contrasting ways of handling mercy-petitions by Union Home Ministry. These mercy-petitions for the crime committed in the year 1990 were rejected at all levels including two successive Union Home Ministers where even the Attorney General advised rejection of mercy-petitions. However, these were kept pending at Rashtrapati Bhawan for final approval of the President of India ever since the year 2005.

In a surprising move, Union Home Minister recalled the files for a review in the year 2010 now suggesting turning death-sentence of eight convicts into life-imprisonment which was readily approved by President of India. It is noteworthy that President’s Secretariat did not provide complete correspondence and file-notings despite clear directions from Chief Information Commissioner.

In contrast, the complete 32-pages of file-notings also received under same RTI petition revealed the case of a poor young man Ravji @ Ram Chandra who was supersonically hanged to death in the year 1996 in less than three years of murdering his family in the year 1993 after crossing all stages of trial court, High Court and Supreme Court. His mercy-petition was decided in record six days by the then President Dr Shankerdayal Sharma even though no deciding-authority could establish motivation for crime, evidently the poor fellow had neither influence nor money to engage costly lawyers!