Abolish Death Penalty India: Rajiv Gandhi assassination: HC stays execution of 3 killers

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Rajiv Gandhi assassination: HC stays execution of 3 killers

Ten days before they were to hang, three Rajiv Gandhi killers today got a reprieve from the Madras High Court which stayed their execution for eight weeks even as the

Tamil Nadu Assembly in an unprecedented unanimous resolution appealed to the President to reconsider their mercy pleas.

Stopping the execution set for September 9, a Bench comprising justices C Nagappan and M Sathayanarayanan issued notices to the Centre, the state government and the police, observing there had been a delay of over 11 years in the disposal of their petitions seeking Presidential clemency.

Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan, lodged in Vellore Jail, were convicted and sentenced to death in the case relating to the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi during an election rally at Sriperumpudur on May 21, 1991 by an LTTE suicide bomber.

“The High Court is doing justice. Be sure. They have stayed the execution,” Ram Jethmalani, who pleaded their case, told reporters after the court's interim order.

Jethmalani, Colin Gonsalves and R Vaigai, appearing for the three convicts, contended the “inordinate and inexplicable delay” in disposing of their mercy petitions violated Article 21 of the Constitution (Protection of life and personal liberty).

Shortly before the High Court order, the Assembly unanimously adopted the resolution moved by Jayalalithaa requesting President Pratibha Patil to reconsider the mercy petitions rejected early this month.

A huge crowd outside the court cheered the interim order that was keenly awaited by leaders of several political parties and human rights groups who have launched a campaign to save the lives of the three convicts.

MDMK leader Vaiko, who has been strongly pleading for their release, was also present in court.

The delay of 11 years in deciding their mercy plea was “mental torture” for the convicts, said Jethmalani. “You make them suffer a thousand times. Is this justice?” Jethmalani asked.

In the Assembly, bowing to pressure from various political leaders, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa moved the resolution urging the President to commute the death sentences of the three convicts.

She said the people of the state were “saddened” by the fact that the death sentence was to be executed soon.

The move by Jayalalithaa came a day after she told the Assembly that she did not have the power to annul the death sentence or put their execution on hold after the rejection of their mercy plea by the President.

“Many political parties have appealed to me to commute death sentences and in order to respect the sentiments of the people of the state, I appeal to the members of the house to pass the resolution unanimously,” she said.

The court order and the Assembly initiative were welcomed by Perarivalan's family members, present in the court.

His mother Arputhammal claimed all three condemned prisoners were innocent and should be allowed to live.

“I was in grief on whether I would get my son back. But Amma (Jayalalithaa) has passed a resolution and has given me joy. She has given me hope of bringing back my son. I am extremely happy. I don't know how to express my happiness. I am thankful to all those who worked for this,” she told reporters.

“Everyone has struggled for my son and this support should be there till my son is released,” she said before breaking down.

Perarivalan's father Kuyildasan said the stay was due to the efforts of the people and lawyers.

Welcoming the adoption of the resolution in the Assembly, he said different parties have come together to request the President to reconsider the mercy petitions.

Perarivalan's sister said she had immense faith in the judiciary. “This is only a stay. What we want is complete release.”

The three convicts were sentenced to death in 1999, along with Nalini, who is married to Murugan. After Nalini gave birth to a baby girl in jail, her death sentence was commuted to life following a request made by Sonia Gandhi.

Source:http://www.indianexpress.com/news/rajiv-gandhi-assassination-hc-stays-execution-of-3-killers/839197/

Indian Express
Posted: Tue Aug 30 2011, 11:23 hrs

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The Death Penalty Scenario in India

India is one of the 193 countries that retains death penalty. There has always been a few imminent judges who have pronounced compelling verdicts upholding the rights of prisoners on death row. There has been increasing debate in various platforms advocating abolition of death penalty or at least to rethink sentencing policies in India. The Indian government has however always been committed to the retention of the death penalty, irrespective of their political ideology. India has voted against a United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) draft resolution on the use of death penalty, saying it goes against the statutory law of the country where an execution is carried out in the "rarest of rare" cases. India retains the death penalty as punishment for a number of crimes including murder, kidnapping, terrorism, desertion, inducement to suicide of a minor or a mentally-retarded person and has more recently in 2013 come to include the offence of rape in certain circumstances. Most recently, there is an outrage over child rape and murder.

After observing an unofficial moratorium of 8 years in India, the Indian Government in November 2012 carried out the execution of Ajmal Kasab, convicted in the Mumbai attacks case, without public knowledge. This was followed by the secret execution of Afzal Guru, convicted in the Parliament attack case of 2001, in February 2013, under similar circumstances, without intimating his immediate family or affording a chance of judicial review. In both cases, the executions were carried out under covert operations conducted by the Government immediately upon rejection of their mercy petitions. Before these executions, the last execution to be carried out in India was that of Dhananjoy Chatterjee in 2004 who was convicted of rape and murder and which sentence was carried out after he had spent 13 years in solitary confinement. Following this, several mercy petitions of death row convicts have come to be rejected. The fear of execution of such convicts is imminent. Bolstered by the Government's unapologetic conduct and public outcry, especially in recent cases of rape and murder reported in the country, the courts are continuing to hand down death sentences at an alarming rate.

In the recent past, there have been a few empirical studies (mainly four) conducted with prisoners on death row. This has highlighted the situation of prisoners on death row.

(1) Most recently the India Exclusion Report 2017-18 found that fair trial rights and guarantees are reduced to a nullity and seeks to breach the citadel of the collective silence. It further said that Convicts on death row in India belong to groups marginalised along the axes of caste, religion, economic vulnerability and educational deprivation, and their fair trial rights, though a part of the Right to Life guaranteed by the Constitution, are invariably non-existent, a survey of 371 out of the 385 persons living under the death sentence and their families has revealed.

(2) Another study was The Death Penalty Research Project (2015) which was conceived with an aim to document the socio-economic profile of prisoners sentenced to death in India and map their experience within the criminal justice system.

There were two other academic studies that were done conducted by Dr. Reena Mary George –

(3)“Voices of prisoners surviving the death row in India” (2014) done through the University of Vienna under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Christoph Reinprecht (Sociology) and Prof. Dr. Manfred Nowak (Law and Ex-United Nations Rapporteur on Torture). George’s research highlights three salient features, namely: poverty, social exclusion and marginalisation are antecedent to death penalty; death penalty is a constructed account by the state machinery; and prisoners on death row situate dignity higher in the juxtaposition of death and dignity.

(4) Another one “Death Penalty – A Human Rights Perspective” (2009) done through the University of Mumbai under the guidance of Retired Justice Hosbet Suresh. This was a study in Maharashtra with the objectives to firstly study the impact of death penalty on the social, mental, and physical being of the inmate and secondly, to study the perception of opinion leaders on death penalty with reference to human rights. All the above reports are public documents.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, Prison Statistics 2015, there are 101 prisoners sentenced to death. The actual figure of sentences originally awarded is much higher considering the death sentences of 49 convicts came to be commuted to life imprisonment in the said period. As of today, almost in 2019, the figures are unknown through government statistics, however, research centres claim this figure to be around 371 convicts. During the 1980s the Supreme Court sought to restrict the use of the death penalty by characterizing it as a punishment reserved only for the “rarest of the rare” cases. The doctrine has not had the desired effect. According to a former chief justice of the Delhi High Court, Rajindar Sachar: “after the rarest of rare doctrine was introduced in 1980, the Supreme Court confirmed death penalty in 40 per cent of cases in the period 1980-90 while it was 37.7 per cent between 1970 and 1980. For the high courts it rose from 59 per cent in 1970-80 to 65 per cent during 1980-90”. Over the past two decades the death penalty has been extended to include more crimes and been handed down with increasing frequency.

Most recently while commuting a sentence in Supreme Court (2018), Justice Joseph did not seek the reconsideration of the Bachan Singh judgment, but only sought to re-examine the purpose and practice of the death penalty, and whether as a punishment, it serves any goal at all. In other words, the death penalty can continue to remain constitutionally valid because of the Bachan Singh judgment, but its application in substantive cases coming before the court must be restricted to only those cases which meet the criteria laid down in that case.

While updating the blog and conducting my own empirical studies, I observed the heinous nature of the crimes that were committed and thought about the families, about their loss, about the victims who for no fault of their own died. If I lost my relative or a dear friend, would I still oppose death penalty and would I still advocate to abolish the death sentence? Having worked in the criminal justice system and also having the seen the other side, where often it is the marginalized, vulnerable and oppressed who are on death row makes me want to advocate for abolition of this punishment. Victims should definitely get justice for their loss, for their pain. No one should escape the rule of law. As long as humanity exists; crime will exist. Should we not re-consider our sentencing policies?

Reena Mary George

Abolish Death Penalty India

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Rajiv Gandhi assassination: HC stays execution of 3 killers

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