Out of seven people convicted for heinous crimes, President Pranab Mukherjee has upheld execution in five cases while commuting death sentence to life term in two others.
Under Article 72 of the Constitution, the President has power to ‘grant pardons, etc, and to suspend, remit or commute sentences in certain cases’.
No more mercy files are pending before the President now.
According to reports, the mercy petitions of the following have been dismissed by the President:
Gurmeet Singh of Uttar Pradesh, who was convicted for killing 13 members of a family on August 17, 1986.
Dharampal from Haryana, who had killed five members of the family of a girl he had raped in 1993.
Daughter of a former Haryana MLA, Sonia, and her husband, Sanjeev, who killed eight of her family members in Hisar in 2001.
Suresh and Ramji from Uttar Pradesh, who were convicted for killing five members of their brother’s family.
Other cases which were on the President’s desk are as follows:
Jafar Ali from Uttar Pradesh, who was convicted for killing wife and five daughters in 2002.
Sunder Singh from Uttarakhand, who was convicted for rape and murder in June 1989.
Praveen Kumar of Karnataka, who was convicted for killing four members of a family on February 23, 1994.