India: President Pratibha Devisingh Patil commutes 14 death sentences into life terms

President Pratibha Devisingh Patil (left) has commuted the death sentence of 14 people by allowing their mercy petitions during the past two months.

Home Ministry sources said those allowed to escape the gallows include Pyara Singh and his 3 sons Sarabjit Singh, Satnam Singh and Gurdev Singh who went on a killing spree and butchered 17 people due to personal enmity.

Their mercy petitions were pending since 1991.

In another case, R Govindswami of Tamil Nadu who killed 5 people including 3 small children has also been shown mercy by the President.

The death penalty of Sheoram, Shyam Manohar and four others has also been turned into life imprisonment. They had barged into a house in UP, and had shot dead 3 persons and took out a victory procession with their severed heads. The 6 men who were sentenced to death in 1997 also shot a 10-year old boy and threw him into fire roasting him alive.

The sources said the President commuted the death sentence on the basis of revised opinion of the Union Home Ministry headed by P Chidambaram, which had recommended that their death sentences be commuted to life imprisonment with the condition that all of them will remain in jail till death and shall never be released on parole.

All of them have already served more than 10 years sentence.

The decision of the President will certainly raise eyebrows and it will have to seen whether the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court in its 2008 judgement, have been followed for granting clemency to those who have been awarded capital punishment for heinous crimes. The highest court of the land has repeatedly held that the punishment for a crime must do justice to the accused as well as to the victim but in these cases it remains to be seen whether justice has been done to the victims and their family members.

In the case of Govindaswami, who had wiped out the entire family of his uncle to grab his property, the Supreme Court had said, ''The brutal manner in which Govindswami wiped out the entire family of his uncle to grab his property has shocked our judicial conscience.

If we commute his death sentence to life imprisonment, we will be yielding to spasmodic sentiments, unregulated benevolence and misplaced sympathy.'' It is yet to be seen whether the Union Government as well as the President have gone beyond the Supreme Court ruling by showing misplaced sympathy for those found guilty of barbaric, diabolical and brutal crimes showing depravity of the worst order.

Even in the case of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, while dismissing his appeal against death sentence, the Supreme Court had said that the attack on Parliament has shocked the collective conscience of the nation and his mercy petition is pending with the Government since 2006.

The moot question is how the President will exercise her powers of clemency in the case of Afzal Guru.

Related story: "India: Presidential pardon for oldest death row inmate", September 1, 2010

Source: Central Chronicle, September 14, 2010

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