Mercy Petition Delay of 11 Years: Supreme Court Commutes Death Sentence, Calls the Wait Cruel Treatment

NEW DELHI — The Supreme Court has commuted the death sentence of a man whose mercy petition lay undecided with the Union government for eleven years, reiterating that unexplained delay in deciding a plea for clemency is a form of cruel treatment that Article 21 does not permit. A three-judge bench delivered the judgment on 10 October in Mohan Lal v. Union of India, a writ petition under Article 32.

The petitioner was sentenced to death by a trial court in 2009 for the murder of three members of a family; the High Court confirmed the sentence in 2012 and the Supreme Court dismissed his appeal in 2014. He filed a mercy petition in 2015. When his lawyers moved the court this year, the petition had not been decided and the file, the Union's own affidavit showed, had not moved between 2017 and 2024.

"The sentence was death. The state added a decade of waiting to it," the bench said.

What a mercy petition is

Article 72 of the Constitution gives the President, and Article 161 gives the Governor, the power to grant pardons, reprieves, respites or remissions, and to suspend, remit or commute sentences. A mercy petition is the convict's request for that power to be exercised, usually filed once the appeal, review and curative remedies are exhausted. The President acts on the advice of the Council of Ministers; in practice the Ministry of Home Affairs prepares the file, after obtaining the views of the state government, and the decision is communicated to the prison.

The Constitution sets no time limit. The jail manuals of most states require the petition to be forwarded promptly, and since Shatrughan Chauhan (2014) the Supreme Court has required the executive to dispose of petitions expeditiously, but there is no statutory clock of the kind that governs bail or trial.

What the court held

1. The delay was inordinate and unexplained. Eleven years passed between the filing of the petition and the hearing of the writ. The Union's affidavit attributed the delay to the need to obtain reports from the state and to "administrative reasons"; the bench found no explanation for the seven years in which the file did not move at all.
2. The delay was not the convict's. The petitioner filed no further proceedings after 2015 and did not seek adjournments. The court distinguished cases in which convicts prolong proceedings by successive petitions.
3. Delay of this kind is cruel treatment. Following Triveniben and Shatrughan Chauhan, the bench held that keeping a person under the shadow of execution for over a decade, with no decision either way, inflicts a punishment the sentence did not contain, and that the executive's failure to decide engages Article 21.
4. Commutation. The sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life. The bench declined the Union's request to fix a minimum term without remission, leaving remission to the appropriate government under the ordinary law.

The bench also directed the Union to place on record, within eight weeks, a statement of every mercy petition pending before the President, the date of its filing and the stage at which it stands.

The sentence was death. The state added a decade of waiting to it.

From the judgment

The law on delay and the death penalty

• Triveniben v. State of Gujarat, (1989) 1 SCC 678. A Constitution Bench held that undue delay in executing a death sentence after the judicial process is complete entitles the convict to approach the court under Article 32, and that the court may commute the sentence, but it rejected a fixed period, overruling the two-year rule suggested in T.V. Vatheeswaran (1983).
• Shatrughan Chauhan v. Union of India, (2014) 3 SCC 1. A three-judge bench commuted the sentences of fifteen convicts, holding that unexplained delay in disposing of mercy petitions, prolonged solitary confinement and mental illness are supervening circumstances warranting commutation. It laid down guidelines, including a minimum of fourteen days between rejection of a mercy petition and execution, communication of the rejection in writing to the convict and family, legal aid, and a mental health evaluation before execution.
• Navneet Kaur v. State (NCT of Delhi), (2014) 7 SCC 264. The court recalled its earlier view that delay could not benefit convicts under anti-terror laws, commuting the sentence of Devender Pal Singh Bhullar.
• Union of India v. V. Sriharan, (2016) 7 SCC 1. A Constitution Bench held that the Supreme Court and High Courts may impose a life sentence that runs for a fixed term or for the whole of natural life without remission, as an alternative to death.

Why mercy petitions take so long

The file for a single petition passes through the prison, the state home department, the state cabinet or Governor, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the President's secretariat, and may be returned for reconsideration at any stage. Successive petitions by the same convict, by relatives and by organisations are common. The bench noted that none of this explains a file that does not move at all, and observed that the Union had not cited a single step taken between 2017 and 2024.

What the judgment means

• For death-row convicts: delay of this order, where the convict has not caused it, is itself a ground for a writ under Article 32 or Article 226 seeking commutation. Records of the date of filing and every communication from the prison should be preserved.
• For the executive: the direction to report pending petitions signals that the court intends to monitor disposal, and that further unexplained delays will be treated as the Union's responsibility, not the convict's.
• For sentencing courts: the judgment adds to the body of authority, including the pending reference on mitigating circumstances, that treats the death penalty as reserved for the rarest of rare cases and subject to supervening review.

Timeline of the case

• 2009 — Trial court awards the death sentence.
• 2012 — High Court confirms the sentence.
• 2014 — Supreme Court dismisses the appeal.
• 2015 — Mercy petition filed with the President.
• 2017–2024 — No movement on the file, according to the Union's affidavit.
• 2026 — Writ petition under Article 32; sentence commuted on 10 October.

The Counsel will report the Union's statement of pending mercy petitions when it is filed. This report discusses capital punishment; readers affected by these issues can seek support from a qualified lawyer or a legal aid authority.

This report is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult a qualified lawyer about their own circumstances. Case citations are to The Counsel Reports (TCR) unless otherwise stated.