Bandu Baburao Tidke, who passed away five years ago due to AIDS, had been awarded the capital punishment by a Karnataka court for rape and murder of a 16-year old girl in 2002.
Tidke was sentenced to death by the sessions court in the district headquarters town of Bagalkot, which was subsequently confirmed by the Supreme Court.
Tidke died at district hospital here on October 18, 2007, and his death and post-mortem reports were submitted to Inspector General (Prisons)on October 18, 2007,jail authorities at Hindalaga said.
Patil on June 2 commuted the death sentence of 35 people including that of already deceased Tidke's to life imprisonment.
However, the first woman President of the country rejected mercy petitions of five people, including the assassins of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who had committed heinous crime.
A sugarcane cutter from Beed district of Maharashtra, Tidke had migrated to Hullyal in Bagalkot district, where he started wearing saffron clothes and resided in Sadashiv Appanna Math.
In 2002, he raped the girl at an underground room of the math, murdered her and fled to Shirdi, and later was arrested.
Tidke was transferred to Hindalga jail on December 4, 2005. Between 2005 and 2007, he was admitted several times to district hospital for treatment for AIDS.
He was admitted there for the last time on October 6 for "bilateral pulmonary tuberculosis" and died on October 18,2007,the jail authorities said.
Tidke had appealed to the high court in December 2005 against the sessions court judgement but the death penalty was confirmed on March 14, 2006 and a week later he appealed to the Supreme Court which also upheld the sentence.
Tidke had submitted a mercy appeal to the President on August 3, 2006.
