. Let us sacrifice our today
so that our children can have
a better tomorrow.
- Abdul Kalam
During his term as President, he was affectionately known as the People's President.
In his words, signing the Office of Profit Bill was the toughest decision he had taken during his tenure.
Kalam is criticized for inaction as a President in deciding the fate of 20 out of the 21 mercy petitions.
Article 72 of the Constitution of India empowers the President of India to grant pardon, suspend and remit death sentences and commute the death sentence of convicts on death row.
Kalam acted on only one mercy plea in his 5 year tenure as a President, rejecting the plea of rapist Dhananjoy Chatterjee, who was hanged thereafter.
The most important of the 20 pleas is thought to be that of Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri terrorist who was convicted of conspiracy in the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament and was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court of India in 2004.
While the sentence was scheduled to be carried out on 20 October 2006, the pending action on the mercy plea resulted in him continuing in the death row.
Biographies:
- President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam by R. K. Pruthi; Anmol Publications, 2002.
