The office of the President hastaken off the 'mercy petition' section from its officialwebsite and it said matters relating to the subject for publicinformation will henceforth be dealt by the Union HomeMinistry.
The website had a separate section giving details of thenumber of clemency petitions pending with President PranabMukherjee and those cleared by him after he assumed office inJuly last year.
The section was put in place immediately after theexecution of Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving Pakistani gunman,in connection with the Mumbai terror attack. He was hanged inNovember last year.
Rashtrapati Bhavan officials said today a decision topull out the section relating to mercy petitions was taken asit was a subject matter of Ministry of Home Affairs which willdeal with the matter in future.
The section, which was a part of President's Secretariatin the official website, was updated on January 11 after thePresident had rejected the mercy plea of death row convictSaibanna Ningappa Natikar, who had murdered his wife anddaughter.
However, the section was never updated after theexecution of Afzal Guru, who was sent to gallows on Februarynine this year.
The President's Secretariat, meanwhile, introduced asection that contained the list of mediapersons who hadtravelled with the Presidents of the country since 1958, whenthe then President Rajendra Prasad travelled abroad for thefirst time to Malaysia and Indonesia.
On display of the list, Rashtrapati Bhavan officialssaid this was in response to an RTI query.