President Pratibha Patil has commuted the death sentences of three prisoners to life imprisonment.
The mercy petitions of Laliya Doom and Shiv Lal of Rajasthan and Bantu of Uttar Pradesh were considered under Article 72 of the Constitution and their death sentences were commuted to imprisonment for life, Home Minister P. Chidambaram told journalists here.
Article 72 gives the President power “to grant pardons, etc, and to suspend, remit or commute sentences in certain cases.”
Last month, the President commuted death sentences of four – Om Prakash of Uttarakhand and Satish, Karan Singh and Kunwar Bahadur Singh of Uttar Pradesh.
Keywords: Pratibha Patil, death sentences commutation, mercy pleas
The courts always do their best to give justice to the killers' victims' relatives but the Home Ministry turns this into a travesty of justice because it is more concerned about populism than fair play. The President simply rubber stamps the ministry's "advice." Ergo, instead of wasting the courts' time and efforts, all murder cases should be directly dealt with by the Home Ministry.
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