Fix a time frame for disposal of mercy petitions: Digvijay

Bhopal, Jan 27 (PTI) Congress General Secretary DigvijaySingh said today that there was an urgent need to fix a timelimit for disposal of mercy petitions filed before thePresident by convicts on the death row.

"The absence of such a time limit for the disposal ofmercy petitions leads to a number of unwanted and undesirablethings which will be eliminated once they were decided withina fixed time frame," Singh told PTI.

He said it appears that there was something wrong witheither the Union Home Ministry or the President''s housebecause of which no decision is taken on mercy petitions andthey remain hanging for a long time.

The senior Congress leader said of late the BJP has beencharging the Congress with dilly-dallying on the issue ofexecuting the death sentence to Parliament attack convictAfzal Guru.

He said if his memory serves him right, not a single mercypetition was decided even when senior BJP leader, L K Advaniwas the Home Minister for six long years.

Singh said even mercy petitions of the killers of formerPrime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had not been decided yet.