When the country would get its 14th President on July 26, apart from several legacies that the new President would get, next President would not get any mercy petition to clear. According to the data analysed by Millennium Post, the incumbent President Pranab Mukherjee had not left any mercy plea pending for his successor.
Either rejecting or reducing the quantum of punishment, Mukherjee has cleared all 49 petitions, including even those mercy pleas, which were left pending by his predecessor.
In total, the six Presidents have cleared about 127 mercy petitions and out of these, 49 pleas have been resolved during Pranab Mukherjee tenure.
According to the data, the President House had received in total 4,825 mercy petitions and out of that 3,256 pleas have been rejected, while 1,569 petitions have been converted into life imprisonment from death sentence.
Notably, only petitioners got relief from Mukherjee as out of total 49 mercy pleas, the incumbent President gave his mercy to only seven accused by converting their death sentence into life imprisonment, while he rejected 42 prayers.
When the data of mercy shown by Presidents were compared, it has come to the notice that first women President Pratibha Patil was more kind than others as Patil had converted 19 death sentences into life imprisonment out of the total 22 pleas. Just three prayers were not heard during her tenure. Interestingly, the most popular President of the country –Dr APJ Abdul Kalam who was the 11th Constitutional head of the country –had cleared only two mercy pleas during his tenure by reducing one petitioner's punishment to life term and rejecting the other petitioner's appeal.
Surprisingly, the country's first Dalit President KR Narayanan had not taken any decision on any mercy petition during his tenure, while R Venkataraman had cleared total 40 pleas. Venkataraman had neither provided any relief to anyone nor reduced anyone's capital punishment. Shakar Dayal Sharma, the 9th President, had resolved four mercy pleas out of total 14 that he had received during his tenure.