Zee
News: Amritsar: Friday, 27 March 2015.
A total of
121 death petitions involving more than 163 persons were disposed off by the
President of India in the last 34 years.
In response
to an RTI query, Ministry of Home Affairs (Judicial Division) said that since
1981, there were 124 cases, whereupon 90 cases were rejected and 31 were
extended relief as their death sentences were condoned as commuted to life
imprisonment, J P Agrawal, Joint Secretary, Judicial & CPIO said.
Three death
petitions are still under examinations, one is of Balwant Singh Rajoana from
Chandigarh and Tote Dewan from Assam; both filed in 2012 and that of Antony
from Kerala whose petition was filed in 2013, he said.
Among the
convicts waiting for the gallows, is Davinder Singh Bhullar of the Khalistan
Liberation Force convicted for killing nine people and injuring 31 in a bomb
blast in 1993.
His mercy
petition was filed in January 2003 and rejected on 25.5.2011 and is yet to be
hanged.
The petition
of Balwant Singh Rajoana, convicted for the assassination of former Punjab
Chief Minister Beant Singh on August 31, 1995, is still under examination, the
RTI reply said.
However, no
information was provided with regard to number of?prisoners who were awarded
death penalty but set free after mercy from the President of India, Aggarwal
said.
Whether the
prisoners who were pardoned of death penalty; were set free or still behind the
bars was also not provided by the Division.
Information
regarding the number of death row prisoners confirmed by the Supreme Court of
India, who have never sought mercy from the President was also left out from
the RTI reply, with the authority stating that the concerned states may provide
the details of the same.