ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the internal guidelines that have been used for decision-making on clemency petitions in India, as well some factors beyond the guidelines which have influenced the executive. The mercy jurisprudence of the executive demonstrates significant arbitrariness, perhaps unsurprising for such a closed and secretive process. The potential impact on law and order has often been taken into account as a factor by the executive in the decision-making process. In the case of Sawai Singh, the petition was rejected since the victim was a policeman and commutation ‘would not be in the interests of maintaining the morale of the police’. Continuation of the ‘family line’ is of the more curious factors that have influenced the executive to commute death sentences. This appears to have come about as 1956 when the sentence of Angrez Singh was commuted ‘with a view to saving the family from virtual extinction’.
