The UPA government has tried to impress the Supreme Court with its 'better' track record in deciding a total of 15 mercy petitions of death row convicts during the past seven years of its rule while comparing it with the six-year tenure of the NDA when not even a single petition was decided.
The comparison of the performances of the NDA and UPA was made in an affidavit filed by the Union home ministry in response to a petition moved by Punjab militant Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, whose mercy petition was rejected by the President recently.
He has tried to make 11-year delay in deciding his mercy petition a ground for converting his death sentence into life imprisonment.
The UPA government has produced a chart showing as how many mercy petitions were 'submitted and resubmitted'by the home ministry to the President secretariat during its rule so far and during the sixyear tenure of the BJP-led NDA coalition.
As per the chart, during the NDA regime between March 1998 and May 2004 a total of 14 mercy petitions were 'submitted/resubmitted'to the President secretariat but decision arrived at finally was 'zero'.
However, during the UPA-I (May 2004 to April 2009) the home ministry processed 28 mercy petitions but the President decided only two of them.
But the track record of the UPA-II from May 2009 till September 30, 2011 was far more 'impressive' with 13 petitions decided by the President out of 25 processed by the home ministry, the affidavit stated.
“With reference to these figures, it is submitted that there were 28 mercy petitions of death convicts pending till October, 2009 and two cases were received in November 2009 and two in 2011 till September 30, making total pendency as 32,” affidavit stated.