The present President of India Pranab Mukherjee has cleared all the mercy petitions pending before the President/s of India  for many years.


With the disposal of the mercy petitions of nine persons convicted with death penalty for multiple murders, the number of mercy petitions pending before the President of India has become “NIL”.


Out of the mercy petitions cleared, those of the following six persons  have been rejected by Mr.Pranab Mukherjee and the death penalties confirmed and the convicts would be hanged soon:

• Gurmeet Singh of Uttar Pradesh, who was convicted for killing 13 members of a family on  17th August 1986

• Dharampal from Haryana, who was convicted for  killing five members of the family of a girl he had raped in the year 1993

• Sonia, the daughter of a former Haryana MLA, Sonia  and her husband,

• Sanjeev convicted for  killing  eight of Sonia’s  family members in Hisar in  the year 2001

• Suresh and

• Ramji from Uttar Pradesh, who were convicted for killing five members of their brother's family

The Death Sentences of the following three persons have been commuted to Life Imprisonment by the President of India:

• Jafar Ali from Uttar Pradesh, who was convicted for killing his wife and five daughters in the year 2002

• Sunder Singh from Uttarakhand, who was convicted for rape and murder in June 1989 and

• Praveen Kumar of Karnataka, who was convicted for killing four members of a family on 23rd February  1994.

According to the Union Home Ministry of India, the Presidents of India, under Article 72 of the Constitution of India, had considered mercy petitions of  a total number of 114 death penalty- convicted persons  from the year 1981till 04th April 2013, out of which mercy petitions of 83 persons had been rejected and the death penalty of 31 persons had been commuted to “Life Imprisonment”.