The Union Home Ministry on Wednesday decided to recommend to President Pranab Mukherjee rejection of >mercy petitions of murder convict Surender Koli , who was sentenced to death for killing young children in Nithari area in Noida, and four other death row convicts.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has signed five files that will be sent to the President, recommending rejection of mercy petitions of Renukabai and Seema of Maharashtra, Surender Koli of Uttar Pradesh, Rajendra Pralhadrao Wasnik from Maharashtra, Jagdish from Madhya Pradesh and Holiram Bordoloi from Assam.
Surender Koli, 42, >was handed the death sentence for raping and brutally killing young children in Nithari area of Noida in 2005-2006.
The sentence was >confirmed by the Supreme Court in February 2011. While he was given death sentence in four cases out of 16 slapped against him, the other cases are still under trial.
Earlier, the President’s Secretariat had returned the files of Seema, Renukabai and Jagdish to the Home Ministry for review as the UPA Government had sent them towards the end of its tenure. The President will now take a decision on the mercy petitions based on the recommendation of the Home Ministry.
The Supreme Court had ruled this January that “inordinate and inexplicable” delays in disposal of mercy petitions by the President were valid grounds for commuting a convict's death penalty to life sentence and had spared 15 convicts, mostly associates of forest brigand Veerappan, from execution.
