 bill no  31 of  2016 the constitution (amendment) bill, 2016 byshri anurag singh thakur, mp a billfurther to amend the constitution of indiabe  it enacted by parliament in the sixty-seventh year of the republic of india as follows:—amendment of article 722 after clause (1) of article 72 of the constitution, the following clause shall be inserted, namely:—"(1a) save as otherwise provided in clause (1), the power referred to in clause (1) shall be exercised by the president within a period of six months from the date of receipt of the petition of mercy:5provided that if the president does not exercise the power within the aforesaid period, it shall be deemed that the petition of mercy has been declined and shall not be resubmitted(1b) the power referred to under clause (1) shall not apply to the punishment or sentence of any person convicted of any offence relating to—10(a) sedition or waging war against the state; and (b) terrorist activities in any part of the country" statement  of  objects  and  reasonsarticle 72 of the constitution empowers the president to grant pardons, reprieves, respites or remissions of punishment or to suspend, remit or commute the sentence of any person convicted of an offence mentioned in that article though, the president has been bestowed with absolute powers in this regard, no time limit has been fixed within which such power has to be exercised as a result, the mercy petitions are kept pending for a long period without any decision as a fallout of this, the convicts are to be kept guarded in jails and heavy expenditure is incurred upon them it is burden on tax payer's money and a drain on national exchequer in the present situation, attempts are being made both externally and internally to hurt harmony and cohesiveness of our civil society in the form of terrorist activities or other such heinous crimes the persons who commit such heinous crimes misuse the provision of mercy petition to delay the sentence as disposal of such petitions take several years it is high time that such inordinate delay in disposal of mercy petitions be addressed to by providing that the power of the president to grant pardon, reprieve, respite or remission of punishment etc must be exercised within six months of the receipt of the mercy petition in genuine cases and there is an urgent need to exclude specifically the acts of terrorism from the purview of this articlethe bill seeks to amend the constitution with a view to put a time limit to exercise the pardoning power and excluding acts of sedition and terrorism from the pardoning power of the presidenthence this bill annexure extract from the constitution of india    72 (1) the president shall have the power to grant pardons, reprieves, respites or remissions of punishment or to suspend, remit or commute the sentence of any person convicted of any offence—(a) in all cases where the punishment or sentence is by a court martial;power of president to grant pardons, etc, and to suspend, remit or commute sentences in certain cases(b) in all cases where the punishment or sentence is for an offence against any law relating to a matter to which the executive power of the union extends;(c) in all cases where the sentence is a sentence of death     lok sabha———— a billfurther to amend the constitution of india————(shri anurag singh thakur, mp)gmgipmrnd—4262ls(s3)—24-02-2016