Journalism of Courage
Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh today said there was an urgent need to fix a time limit for disposal of mercy petitions filed before the President by convicts on the death row.
“The absence of such a time limit for the disposal of mercy petitions leads to a number of unwanted and undesirable things which will be eliminated once they were decided within a fixed time frame,” Singh said.
It appears that there was something wrong with either the Union Home Ministry,led by P Chidambaram,or the President’s house because of which no decision is taken on mercy petitions and they remain hanging for a long time,Singh said.
Of late the BJP has been charging the Congress with dilly-dallying on the issue of executing the death sentence to Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru,he said,adding,”if my memory served me right,not a single mercy petition was decided even when senior BJP leader L K Advani was the Home Minister for six years.”
Singh said even mercy petitions of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s killers had not been decided yet.
