After forcing the government to decide 32 mercy petitions of death row convicts last year, the Supreme Court on Tuesday focused its attention on the remaining 18 pleas pending with the President, including that of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, and summoned all the files.
“We would like to go through all the files pending before the government. We are not satisfied there are tangible grounds for delay... We feel we should examine these cases. After going through the files, we will consider (if) there is a case for issuing suo motu notice (to the government),” a bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and S.J. Mukhopa-dhaya said, asking additional solicitor-general Harin Raval to produce the files on April 10.
The court sought the files after studying government records on hundreds of mercy petitions since 1972, and found that initially the delays weren’t so alarming but in the past two decades clemency petitions were not being taken up for consideration for eight to nine years in a row. In 18 cases, including that of Afzal, the court found there were delays ranging between one to seven years when the government was yet to process their appeals.