New Delhi, May 26
President Pratibha Devisingh Patil has rejected the mercy petition of Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, sentenced to death for the 1993 assassination attempt on Youth Congress leader MS Bitta, official sources said tonight.

Only on May 23, the Supreme Court had issued notice to the government seeking its response to a petition by Bhullar pleading that his death sentence should be commuted to life as he had already spent about 10 years behind the bars.

A Bench comprising Justices GS Singhvi and CK Prasad had expressed surprise over the fact that his mercy petition was pending for eight years.

The sources said the President had also rejected the mercy petition of another death-row convict, Mahendra Nath Das of Assam. The rejection of the two mercy petitions is expected to expedite the process of clearing the long list of such convicts, including Afzal Guru, convicted in the Parliament attack case.