Pranab rejects 2 mercy pleas; 30 rejections now in his tenure

President Pranab Mukherjee rejected two mercy petitions in the last week of May, just two months before he completes his tenure.

The cases are of rapes and murders — one of a four-year-old girl by three men in Indore in 2012, and of a 22-year-old woman by two men in Pune in 2007. The pleas were received in the President’s secretariat in April and May. The convicts urged the President to commute the death penalty awarded to them by local courts concerned and upheld by respective high courts and finally by the Supreme Court.

In the rape and murder case of Indore, Jitendra alias Jeetu, Babu alias Ketan, and Sanni alias Devendra were handed death sentence by a city court a year after the crime. The sentence was upheld by MP high court in 2014 and by the apex court on January 6, 2015.

Mukherjee rejected their mercy petition on May 25, a Rashtrapati Bhavan communique said. In the Pune case, the convicts — cab driver Purushottam Dashrath Borate and his accomplice Pradeep Yeshwant Kokade — raped and murdered the woman, who was on her way to office for a night shift in a cab. She was abducted, raped and killed by the driver and his aide — the two convicts. The trial court had awarded death penalty, confirmed by Bombay HC and upheld by SC on May 8, 2015.

Their mercy petition was rejected on May 26. With these cases, the number of mercy petitions rejected by Mukherjee has gone up to 30.