With the views of President A P J Abdul Kalam on capital punishment figuring prominently in the media, Home Minister Shivraj Patil reviewed the legal aspects of mercy petitions sent to the head of the state by death row convicts.
Patil convened a meeting Tuesday with senior officials of his ministry including joint secretary in the home ministry's judicial division P K Seth who deals with mercy pleas, sources said Wednesday.
The dicussions related to general aspects of mercy petitions since the home minister wanted to get acquainted with the legal and constitutional aspects of the issue, the sources said.
The meeting came in the wake of reports that the President favoured aspects like humanitarian, age, physical condition of the convict, the possibility of the person facing death sentence committing the crime again, family liabilities and such other issues to be taken into account while deciding on the mercy plea.
Sources said the President was of the view that if the government felt a convict should be sentenced to death after examining these aspects, Rashtrapati Bhavan would just go along with the home ministry's judgement, they said. The sources said the home ministry was yet to receive anything in writing from the President. The President, they said, was of the view that all mercy pleas should be decided on merit by the home ministry and there could not be any hard and fast rule to judge all such issues.
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