04 September 2004 :

It was reported that as many as 71 convicts were on death row in different jails in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, where no one had been hanged to in the past 15 years. The mercy appeals of 11 of the convicts had been pending with the president for some time, said a senior official of the state jails department. "No one has been hanged in Uttar Pradesh in the last 15 years as the appeals of several convicts have been pending before different courts or before the president," an official at the prison said requesting anonymity.
"The last time a murder convict was hanged in Uttar Pradesh was in 1989 and that was at the Naini jail in Allahabad." Most appeals before the Allahabad High Court or the Supreme Court against death sentences awarded by different lower courts had been pending since 1995. Even mercy appeals before the president were said to be pending for over a year, the official claimed.
Of the 11 convicts whose death sentences had been confirmed by the Supreme Court, four were lodged in Bareilly jail, four in Naini, two in Agra and one in Meerut. Six of these 11 convicts belonged to the Lakhimpur-Kheri district. Involved in a mass murder, they were convicted by the local district and sessions court in 1995. The high court and the Supreme Court upheld the punishment. Subsequently, a petition was moved before the state governor, after whose rejection the last and final mercy appeal was made to the president.