I found a solution.
For anybody else who might be having a similar problem use the <f

aram> tag to pass parameters.
<h:column>
<f:facet name="header">
<h

utputText styleClass="ListHead" value="#{msgs.name}" id="text1"></h

utputText>
</f:facet>
<h:commandLink styleClass="commandLink" id="link1" action="#{pc_MerchantSearchResults.followLink}">
<h

utputText value="#{results.merchantName}"></h

utputText>
<f

aram name="merchantNumber" value="12345678"></f

aram>
</h:commandLink>
</h:column>
And in the method you can access the parameters as below
public void followLink(){
String columnValue = (String)FacesContext.getCurrentInstance).getExternalContext().getRequestParameterMap().get("merchantNumber");
System.out.println("columnValue = " + columnValue);
}
Hope this helps.