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Question

Once Mr. X, a dreaded terrorist responsible for murder of a number of innocent people, has been convicted, with death penalty, and this order has been upheld by the Supreme Court. The terrorist has appealed to the President of India for pardon as the Indian Constitution has vested the power of waiving death penalty to the President. There is a clamour in the media that X should be hanged quickly. There is lot of expenditure associated with maintaining tight security for such a convict. Assuming that you are the Home Secretary who normally forwards such petitions for consideration of the President of India, which of the following course of action would you have taken in the context of media concerns?

A
Reject the petition and order hanging
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B
Get opinion of Prime Minister's Office (PMO) informally and then take next step
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C
Ask some opinion survey agency to get a survey done so that public opinion comes out
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D
Forward the matter to the office of the President and follow up with the President's secretariat for a timely decision.
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Solution

The correct option is D Forward the matter to the office of the President and follow up with the President's secretariat for a timely decision.
Recognize the legal dimension of the matter. President has special powers to waive death sentence and that power bestows a corresponding right on the convict to have his petition considered. The convict might have done heinous crimes but the right cannot be curtailed or abrogated. That is the rule of law.
Thus, (a) suggests an incorrect course of action. The home secretary cannot take upon himself the functions of the President of India. This should get no score at all.
It is a routine matter. Public feeling or media coverage notwithstanding only a weak and incompetent officer will go seeking opinion of PMO. Hence, (b) is an inappropriate course of action. This response should get 0.23 score.
The choice (c) is even worse than (b). For every matter, there is no system of getting public opinion survey. That practice would paralyse government work besides adding unnecessary burden of expenditure on government. Again a zero score response.
The choice (d) is the correct course of action. In view of the public opinion, home secretary should be in contact with the President's secretariat for expeditious decision on this petition. This response would fetch perfect score.

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