April 2002 after the dismissal of the review petition, the Supreme Court may allow a curative petition to reconsider its judgment or order if it is established that there was a violation of principles of natural justice or apprehension of bias on part of a judge. The Supreme Court in the said case held that in order to prevent abuse of its process and to cure gross miscarriage of justice, it may reconsider its judgements in exercise of its inherent powers. The curative petition would be circulated before the same bench which decided the review petition, if available, or the three senior-most judges of the Supreme Court. The curative petition would be disposed of without oral arguments, unless ordered otherwise by the Supreme Court. Mercy Articles 72 and 161 of the Constitution give power to the President of India and the Governor to grant pardons and to suspend, remit or commute sentences in certain cases. The president or the governor may consider the case of the convict and may pardon the death sentence. Various legal issues surrounding mercy petition has arisen time and again, one of them being delay. In V. Sriharan @ Murugan v. Union of India, February 1947, the Supreme Court reiterated that the clemency procedure under Article 72/161 provides a ray of hope to the condemned prisoners and his family members for commutation of death sentence into life imprisonment and, therefore, the executive should step up and exercise its time honoured tradition of clemency power of guaranteed in the constitution one way or the other within a reasonable time. In the case of Shatrughan Chauhan v. Union of India, January 2014, a three-judge bench of the Indian Supreme Court delivered a landmark judgment on the death penalty: holding, in particular, that an excessive delay in carrying out the death sentence was an essential mitigating factor in a plea for commutation. This was also held in a previous case Triveniben V. State of Gujarat & Ors, February 1989 stating that the Court may consider whether there was undue long delay in disposing of mercy petition; whether the State was guilty of dilatory conduct and whether the delay was for no reason at all. Though the inordinate delay may be a significant factor, that by itself cannot render the execution unconstitutional. Further, the courts have also recognised some other supervening circumstances which should be considered during mercy petition such