No More Hazards With Pardon

Abject disregard of relevant factors and apathy in handling mercy petitions led to the SC's intervention.

Last week, this column lauded the Supreme Court's decision to commute death sentences for fifteen convicts to life imprisonment.

One of the points made in it was that pointing to the gravity of the crimes involved is no argument since an award of the death penalty could only have been in cases of grave crimes. There is another dimension to the issue that bothers readers a lot.

One question routinely asked is whether granting pardon from punishment to a convict erodes the sanctity of a punishment legally handed out by due process of law. Another aspect is whether mercy petitions arbitrarily enable a review of the ultimate judicial decision objectively taken earlier on the merits of the crime. Both these issues are important.