Written by: Express News Service
2 min readNew DelhiMay 27, 2011 01:10 AM IST
First published on: May 27, 2011 at 01:10 AM IST
Going back on her earlier conviction not to reject the mercy petition of any convict on death row,President Pratibha Patil has reportedly rejected the pleas of pro-Khalistan militant Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar and murder convict Mahendra Nath Das of Assam.
This is the first time since 2004 that the President has rejected a mercy petition. That rejection had led to the last hanging seen in the country,that of Kolkata resident Dhananjoy Chatterjee,a convict in the 1990 rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl.
Sources said the President will shortly get back to the Union Home Ministry on her decision,which will then send the same to respective state governments so as to clear the hanging of the two convicts.
Bhullar was sentenced to death by a trial court on August 25,2001,for attempting to assassinate IPS officer Sumedh Singh Saini,the present Punjab Vigilance Bureau Chief Director,in 1991 and then Indian Youth Congress president M S Bitta in 1993. He was found guilty of having caused the death of nine persons in a bomb blast on September 11,1993.
Early this week,Bhullars lawyer K T S Tulsi had urged in the Supreme Court that either his mercy petition be decided expeditiously or his death sentence be commuted.
Das was convicted of the murder of Hara Kanta Das on April 24,1996,while on bail in another murder case. On May 14,1999,the Supreme Court had cleared his sentence.
His mercy petition has been pending since 2000,with the MHA having made three recommendations: first on June 21,2001,another on April 20,2005 and,finally,the most recent one a couple of months back.
Between 1995-2006,the President rejected seven mercy petitions and commuted two,while between 1985 to 1994,41 mercy petitions were rejected and four commuted.
In October 2009,President Patil had cleared the first of the pending mercy petitions,accepting the MHAs recommendation to pardon a murder convict.
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