In order to streamline the procedure applicable to mercy petitions, BNSS CI.472 is a new provision (titled ‘Mercy Petition in death sentence cases’) which lays down the procedure for submitting mercy petitions to the President and Governor under Art.72 and Art.161 of the Constitution, respectively. A statutory written procedure with respect to mercy petitions does not exist presently and the procedure varies from State to State.
- Art.72 and Art.161 of the Constitution provides the President and Governor respectively with wide powers to grant pardons, reprieves, respites or remissions of punishment or to suspend, remit or commute the sentence of any person convicted of any offence. Further, these powers are very expansive – the President and Governor can look beyond the case files, and into any circumstance pertaining to the convict and their life.
- Timelines have been introduced to decide on mercy petitions. There are numerous examples where the mercy petitions are pending for long. CI.472 provides for several time limits. First, where a mercy has not already been submitted, CI.472(1) imposes the time limit of thirty days for submitting mercy petitions to the Governor or the President, from the date on which the Superintendent of Jail informs the prisoner: (a) about the rejection of their special leave petition
by the Supreme Court, or (b) about the date of confirmation of the death sentence by the High Court and the time for filing an appeal or a special leave petition in the Supreme Court has expired. Second, CI.472(2) states that the petition may be first made to the Governor and upon rejection, the convict will have sixty days from the date of rejection, to make a petition to the President. - Since the President is required to act in accordance with the advice of the Council of Ministers, sub-clause (4) requires the Central Government to seek comments of the State Government. Upon receipt of these, the Central Government is required to make recommendations to the President within sixty days. Third, CI.472(6) requires communication of the President’s decision on the mercy petition by the Central Government within forty-eight hours, to the Home Department of the State government and the Superintendent of the Jail or officer in charge of the Jail.
- Further, in order to execute the sentence in time, the practice of filing multiple mercy petitions, sometime with the sole objective of delaying the execution of sentence, has been restricted. The mercy petition can now be filed only by the ‘convict under the sentence of death or his legal heir or any other relative’. (CI.472(1), BNSS).
