No guidelines for examining mercy petitions: Govt

New Delhi, Dec 3: Facing a lot of heat from the opposition on the issue of mercy petition of Mohammad Afzal Guru, the government has clarified that no specific guidelines can be framed for examining the clemency pleas.

''No specific guidelines can be framed for examining the mercy petitions as the power under Article 72 of the Constitution is of the widest amplitude, can contemplate myriad kinds and categories of cases with facts and situations varying from case to case,'' the Home ministry has explained.

The clarification was significant in view of the fact that the opposition has launched a vociferous attack on the government demanding that Afzal, who has been given death penalty by the Supreme Court in the Parliament attack case, be hanged. However, the government has taken the stand that the law should take its own course.

At present 23 mercy petitions are pending with President A P J Kalam and of which one is pending since 1998.

The ministry has, however, explained that the broad guidelines generally considered while examining the mercy petitions are personality of the accused such as age, sex or mental deficiency or circumstances of the case, conduct of the offender, medical abnormality falling short of legal insanity and so on, it pointed.

During the past one decade between 1995-2006, the President has rejected seven mercy petitions and commuted two, while between 1985 to 1994 it rejected 41 mercy petitions and commuted four. As many as 173 such petitions were received between 1975 to 1984 of which 121 were rejected and 52 commuted. However, maximum 543 mercy petitions were commuted between 1965 to 1974 during which 491 such petitions were rejected.

Among the condemned prisoners whose clemency petitions are presently pending with the President, five are from Uttar Pradesh followed by four from Tamil Nadu. Two such petitions each from Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka were at present pending while one each has been received from Punjab, Assam, Bihar, Uttaranchal, Maharashtra, Haryana, Rajasthan and Jharkhand.

The clemancy pleas of Shyam Manohar, Sheo Ram, Prakash, Suresh, Ravinder and Harish from Uttar Pradesh and R Govindasamy of Tamil Nadu are pending since 1998. Tamil Nadu's Mohan and Gopi's petition is pending since 1999 and same is the case with Jai Kumar of Madhya Pradesh. Shobhit Chamar of Bihar has his petition pending since 1999 as has happened in the case of Dharmender Kumar and Narendra Yadav of Uttar Pradesh and Dharm Pal of Haryana.

Murugan, Santhan and Arivu of Tamil Nadu have their prayers pending since 2000, as is the case of Mahender Nath Das of Asom, Sheikh Meeran, Selvam and Radhakrishnan of Tamil Nadu and Molai Ram and Santosh of Madhya Pradesh.

The clemency plea of S B Pingale of Maharashtra is awaited since 2001 while that of Suresh and Ramji of Uttar Pradesh is pending since 2002 with the President.

Piara Singh, Sarabjit Singh, Gurdev Singh and Satnam Singh of Punjab filed their pleas in 2003 along with Devender Pal Singh of Delhi and Om Prakash of Uttaranchal who also appealed for mercy the same year.

In 2004, Praveen Kumar of Karnataka, Sushil Murmu of Jharkhand, Lal Chand, Shivlal of Rajasthan and Simon, Ghanaprakash, Madaiah and Bilavendra of Karnataka had filed their petition seeking leniency from the President.

The compassion petitions of Kunwar Bahadur Singh and Karan Bahadur Singh of Uttar Pradesh was received in 2005, while two such petitions were put forward in the folllowing year by Jafar Ali of Uttar Pradesh and Mohd Afzal of Delhi.

UNI