Article 71

Article 71 of the Constitution of India empowers the President, acting on the advice of the Council of Ministers, to grant pardons, reprieves, respites, remissions of punishment, or to suspend, remit or commute sentences for offences against any law made by Parliament. Unlike Article 72, which is confined to offences relating to Union matters, Article 71 widens the presidential clemency umbrella to all statutes enacted by the legislature, making it the broadest constitutional provision for executive mercy in the country.

Historical Background

The framers incorporated Article 71 during the Constituent Assembly debates of 1949 to address a lacuna in the original draft, which only contained Article 72. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar argued that a separate clause was necessary to ensure that the President could intervene in cases arising under any parliamentary law, not merely those tied to the Union’s executive domain. The provision was adopted on 26 January 1950, the day the Constitution came into force, and has remained unchanged through all subsequent amendments.

The early years saw the clemency power exercised sparingly, reflecting the nascent republic’s emphasis on judicial finality. Between 1950 and 1975, the President granted fewer than twenty pardons under Article 71, most of them in cases involving political prisoners from the erstwhile princely states. The 1975‑77 Emergency period prompted a brief surge in commutations, as the executive sought to mitigate the legal fallout of mass arrests, but the Supreme Court’s 1978 decision in *K