INDIA: PRESIDENT PRANAB MUKHERJEE COMMUTES DEATH SENTENCE OF A CONVICT TO LIFE IMPRISONMENT

after rejecting mercy petitions of 22 convicts on death row, President Pranab Mukherjee commuted the death sentence of a convict to life imprisonment.
Man Bahadur Deewan, alias Tote Deewan, was convicted for killing his wife Gauri and two minor sons, Rajib and Kajib, in September 2002 at a village in Dibrugarh district of Assam. He later killed another inmate of the house and surrendered before the police.
This is one of the rare cases where Mukherjee has commuted the death sentence after taking over in 2012.
Mukherjee is believed to have relied upon the opinion of Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) that had advised him to take a lenient view of the case, considering that Deewan is from a poor background and murdered his wife, sons and a neighbour due to abject poverty and unemployment.