Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde pleads for secrecy on mercy petition decisions

NEW DELHI: Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde has linked stays on some executions by the Supreme Court with the need to maintain secrecy in announcing decisions on mercy petitions, potentially opening a fresh can of worms after his ministry’s conduct in the last hanging case earned it a lot of flak.


“Due to disclosure of the decisions on mercy petitions, four cases have been stayed by the Supreme Court,” Shinde said, referring to the court’s decision on April 7 placing on hold for a month the execution of eight convicts whose mercy petitions had been rejected by the President.

The court had said then that proper communication must be sent to the immediate relatives of these condemned prisoners and said it wanted no repeat of the case of Parliament attack accused Mohammad Afzal.

Asked why the government did not want convicts to approach SC as a final recourse even after the rejection of their mercy petitions, Shinde said in his opinion the legal process was over after rejection of the mercy petition.

“After SC has decided the final appeal and the President has rejected a mercy petition, all legal options get exhausted.”