President Pranab Mukherjee

INDIA: PRESIDENT REJECTS MERCY PLEAS OF SIX DEATH ROW CONVICTS

July 18, 2014: President Pranab Mukherjee of India rejected the mercy petitions of Nithari serial killer Surinder Koli and five other death row convicts.
Apart from Koli, awarded death in the bone-chilling case of abduction, abuse and murder of several minors in Noida's Nithari village, the others whose clemency pleas were rejected are Renukabai and Seema, two sisters convicted of kidnapping and brutally murdering several children; Rajendra Prahladrao Wasnik, convicted of raping and murdering a minor girl; Jagdish, who killed his wife and five children; and Holiram Bordoloi, who had burnt two people and hacked another to death in public in 1996.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had recommended to the President on 18 June to reject the mercy petitions in all five cases.
Though the six death row convicts may still challenge the rejection of their mercy petition, the gap of three years and less between upholding of death sentence by the apex court and scrapping of clemency plea in three cases may not qualify for relief. In February 2014, the Supreme Court had commuted the death sentences of 15 death row convicts to life imprisonment on grounds of inordinate delay on part of the Executive in deciding their mercy pleas – which it did not quantify, though in the relevant cases it ranged from 7 to 11 years – and mental illness. (Sources: TNN and jagranjosh.com, 19/07/2014)