Thursday, October 25, 2012
Confirmation Case to be heard on video conferencing of accused
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
29 Indians sentenced to death in various countries in the last five years: RTI report
Monday, October 8, 2012
Man gets death for rape, murder of minor in Odisha
Punjab HC confirms death but defers hanging of killers of Hoshiarpur boy to Oct 12
Death penalty for five family members in 'honour killing'
Friday, October 5, 2012
Qasab deserves legal aid to draft mercy plea
Advocate Yug Chaudhry on why due process must be followed even in this rarest of rare cases
Posted On Thursday, October 04, 2012 at 02:04:36 AM
A week after Ajmal Qasab was sentenced to death, advocate Yug Chaudhry wrote to the Home Minister and the NHRC, pointing out that Qasab was entitled to legal aid in drafting his mercy petition.
Dismayed at the news that the mercy petition, drafted without legal help, has been rejected, Chaudhry tells Jyoti Punwani why it is necessary to follow the spirit and letter of the law - even in Qasab’s case.
Why are you so concerned with Qasab getting legal aid at this stage? Haven’t we given him a fair trial, despite his obvious guilt?
Yes we have given him due process thus far, and that is why we must continue to do so. Qasab has a right to file mercy petitions before the governor and the President, but he lacks the wherewithal to so. He is illiterate, a stranger to our laws, and a foreigner abandoned by his countrymen.
Since he is clearly ill-equipped to make a mercy petition which it is his right to make, he must be given the necessary assistance. He also has a right under our constitution to legal aid at every stage of the judicial and post-judicial proceedings. For rights to be meaningful, they must be accompanied by facilities that render those rights accessible. If we believe in our Constitution and the rule of law, we cannot make an exception in his case.
Can a legally drafted mercy petition make any difference to Qasab’s fate? He cannot plead innocence or lack of a fair trial.
Neither would a fair trial have made any difference to his fate, but would that have been a reason to deny him one? The question is not whether a mercy petition would make a difference, but whether he is entitled to make one and to receive the necessary assistance.
The moment we allow ourselves, through sheer majoritarian sentiment, to decide outcomes without due process, we put all our liberties in jeopardy and negate the very essence of rights, which is to protect each of us from ad-hoc, majoritarian caprice. The scope of a mercy petition encompasses more than innocence and a fair trial, and few lay persons, let alone an illiterate person, would be competent to draft one unaided.
Given that the death penalty exists in India, doesn’t Qasab deserve it?
An illiterate boy of 13 sold by his family to the LeT, brainwashed into jihad, transformed into a killing machine and sent as a footsoldier to India are mitigating factors that entitle him to the lesser penalty. Qasab’s crime should be contexualised without minimising it, and then we should ask ourselves why are we clamouring for Qasab’s execution while content with life sentences for Babu Bajrangi and Maya Kodnani who perpetrated the Narodya Patya massacres. They killed more or less the same number of people in an equally gruesome manner. Maya Kodnani held public office, and turned on those she was charged to look after and protect. If she doesn’t deserve the death sentence, why does he?
How else can Qasab be punished, given the enormity of his crime?
Keep him in prison for the rest of his life. Treat him like a human being so that he becomes human again and realises the enormity of his crime. Allow for the possibility of repentance and reformation.
Do you feel Qasab deserves mercy?
I think all of us - the best and the worst - are in need of mercy, and it is only by showing mercy that, morally, we ourselves become entitled to receiving it. Bereft of mercy, our society would be impoverished and inhuman, for mercy is quintessentially a human quality, not found elsewhere in the natural world. In classical thought and in many faiths, mercy is the manifestation of divinity within us, of a god who is the ultimate bestower of mercy.
As for “deserving”, give each man his deserts and who shall escape a whipping? Justice and mercy operate in mutually exclusive realms. It is only when justice demands that punishment be inflicted that mercy comes into play. Mercy tempers justice, makes it less exacting, more humane. Excluding a fellow human being from entitlement to mercy has nothing to recommend it except a very base blood lust that we encourage at our peril. If we have to become a more humane and compassionate society, and leave a better, less blood-thirsty world behind for our children, we have to curb our instinct for bloody retribution.
Source: http://www.mumbaimirror.com/article/2/2012100420121004020503161a2c1a95e/Qasab-deserves-legal-aid-to-draft-mercy-plea.html
[accessed on 4th October 2012]
Saturday, September 8, 2012
28-yr-old sentenced to death for killing parents, pregnant wife to marry lover
A man was sentenced to death on Tuesday for killing his pregnant wife and foster parents. Nitin Verma (28) killed them because he wanted to marry a neighbour.
Holding that Verma was a “menace to society”, Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat said life imprisonment was “inadequate punishment” for his crime. Verma had repeatedly stabbed his handicapped father, mother and his six-month pregnant wife to death in April 2008. “There was no justification for the convict to commit the grotesque killings. The convict appears to be without any remorse,” said the judge.
The court said Verma had stabbed them brutally and deserved no leniency. It also noted that the murders seemed methodical and planned, with Verma first killing his father on the ground floor of the house, then his mother on the first floor before rushing to his room to kill his wife.
Public Prosecutor Aditya Chauhan had pleaded with the court to sentence Verma to death as he had murdered his aged parents and his wife in “a brutal and diabolic manner”.
“Verma was in a dominating position in his family. All family members were at his mercy. This calls for harsher punishment. Verma was morally and legally bound to take care of his family, but instead murdered them in a brutal and barbaric manner,” the court said.
“The convict wiped out his whole family to continue his liaison with a girl and to marry her. Nitin is awarded death sentence under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code,” it said.
Verma had been adopted by his parents when he was a child. “When he did not spare his own parents and wife, what respect would he show for the lives of others? The convict is like a live bomb, which has the potential of causing a huge catastrophe if not destroyed at the earliest,” the court said.
Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/28yrold-sentenced-to-death-for-killing-parents-pregnant-wife-to-marry-lover/997931/0 [accessed on 8th September 2012]
Six convicts in death row in Bengal jails
Saibal Sen, TNN Sep 5, 2012, 04.04PM IST
KOLKATA: With Supreme Court upholding Ajmal Kasab's death sentence, six death row convicts in Bengal spending the life in the condemned cells in Alipore and Presidency Jails still await to know their fate. Among the six, three appeals are now pending in the Supreme Court; the rest in Calcutta high court. In one case, the convict's kin has informed jail authorities that the high court has commuted the death sentence to life but the order is yet to reach Alipore jail.
The last death sentence in the country was executed in Alipore central jail on August 14, 2004. Dhananjoy Chaterjee, 39, was hanged for raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl in Bhowanipore on March 5, 1990. Chatterjee was a security-guard of the complex where the child stayed. Before that a serial killer Auto Shankar was hanged in Chennai central jail on April 27, 1995. Before Dhananjoy, the last execution in Bengal was also in Alipore central jail in 1993 when murder convicts, Kartik Sil and Sukumar Burman, were hanged.
Since Dhananjoy's hanging courts in Bengal had passed several death sentences, the first was by a special sessions court which sentenced to death Aftab Ansari and Jamaluddin Naser to death on April 27, 2005 in the USIS attack case. Ansari is in Alipore jail since May 3, 2002; while Naser was brought here before him, on February 21 that year. The death sentence was upheld by the Calcutta high court prompting the duo to appeal against it in the Supreme Court. The other case which pending in the Supreme Court, sources said, is the death sentence awarded by the General Security Force court March 2, 2007 to former BSF head constable Balbir Singh. It is learnt the Guwahati high court has already turned down Singh's appeal against it prompting him to move the Supreme Court.
Singh - admitted to Alipore jail on October 6, 2010 - was convicted for murdering his superior Deputy Commandant Kameswar Singh for ticking him off for dereliction of duty while posted at Rajnagar outpost in South Tripura district. Balbir then gunned down Assistant Commandant Alok Ranjan as he had witnessed the killing of the other officer. Among the others who've also appealed against their death sentence in Calcutta high court are Sambhu Lohar (in Alipore jail) and Kebal Roy (in Presidency jail). Sambhu was sentenced to death by a Suri court on September 15, 2010 for murdering two people inside an Sainthia oil mill. The victims were first drugged and later hacked to death with a chopper later their bodies were set on to destroy evidence. The day the Additional Sessions Judge, 3rd court, Suri sentenced Sambhu to death he was immediately brought to Alipore jail and send to the condemned cell.
Roy was sentenced to death by a Kolkata court on September 24, 2008. Roy had murdered his employers - Tarachand (68) and Sarada Devi Banka (56) - in their Mansarovar Apartments home in Camac Street on April 18, 2005. Roy, police said, also stole Rs 20-lakhs worth of valuables. After the murder, Roy fled Kolkata and was arrested from his native village Simultala in Bihar a month later. Roy is in Presidency jail ever since his arrest. On August 25, this year, they've informed that a Calcutta high court division bench has commuted Bagdi's death sentence to life imprisonment. The formal court orders are yet to reach Alipore jail, though.
These convicts aren't the only ones in condemned cells till a few days back. Nikku Yadav, the domestic help who was convicted of murdering his employer Rabindra Kaur Luthra in her Tripura Enclave flat in Ballygunge Circular Road on February 15, 2007, was another death row convict till the Calcutta high court on October 7, 2010 commuted his death sentence to life. Nikku had been handed death by the Alipore Sessions Court on August 29, 2008.
source: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-09-05/kolkata/33614556_1_alipore-jail-central-jail-death-sentence [accessed on 8th September 2012]
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Assam man on death row fasts to end capital punishment
Samudra Gupta Kashyap : Guwahati, Fri Aug 31 2012, 01:43 hrs
Waiting for a hangman for over 17 years now since the Sessions Judge of Kamrup awarded him a death penalty — and one that was subsequently upheld by the Gauhati High Court and the Supreme Court — Mahendra Nath Das has launched a “Gandhian” fast-unto-death in the Jorhat Central Jail, demanding abolition of capital punishment.
“Capital punishment, like so many other things, is a legacy left behind by the British who treated us like slaves. I have been waiting in the prison with a death penalty for 17 years now. At this moment I pray to you to not only do away with my death sentence but also release me from prison as I have already served imprisonment more than a life sentence,” Das, who was shifted to the Jorhat Medical College Hospital after he took ill on the third day of his fast-unto-death on Wednesday, said in a letter addressed to the Chief Justice of India.
Das was sentenced to death by the Sessions Judge, Kamrup (Guwahati) on August 18, 1997 in connection with the murder of one Harakanta Das in Guwahati on April 24, 1996. The death sentence was confirmed by the HC on February 3, 1998. The SC upheld the death sentence on May 14, 1999.
A mercy petition that Das had filed before the President in 1999, was rejected in 2011.
Source: The Indian Express
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/assam-man-on-death-row-fasts-to-end-capital-punishment/995713/ [accessed on 1st September 2012]
How Kasab might change Mumbai's take on capital punishment
1 Sep, 2012, 02.22AM IST, Vikram Doctor,ET Bureau
At some point in the last century, executions within Bombay itself stopped altogether, with the gallows being moved to Yerawada Jail in Pune. It isn't clear when the actual last execution in the city took place, but the last in Maharashtra was in 1995 when Amrutlal Joshi was executed for murdering three members of the Sadarangani family in Bombay's Khar suburb. That execution was the 100th conducted by Arjun Jadhav, the state's hangman, but nearly all were done in Pune. Kasab will have to be taken there too, unless the authorities decided to build temporary gallows at Arthur Road jail. Joshi's execution was the second last in India (Auto Shankar's execution in Salem is considered to be the second last, but it was on April 27, 1995 and ToI 's report dates Joshi's execution to July12).
After that Dhananjoy Chatterjee was executed in Kolkata in August 2004 and since then, despite the furious promises of politicians and appeals by TV anchors, there have been none. It is called for, of course, after every violent crime, and the sentence is often passed, yet it is not carried out.
Kasab will probably change that. The scale of the crime he was involved in was so horrific and public, amounting almost to armoured invasion, that it almost demands a symbolic response and the Supreme Court's verdict reflects this. Cynical calculations also suggest that the General Election of 2014 makes it likely, since elections and executions share a dubious history. Politicians have long used executions as a way to show their toughness - for example, French President Giscard d'Estaing was accused of allowing the last executions in French history, in 1977, to help his dwindling re-election prospects.
But will Mumbai really cheer when Kasab hangs? Certainly, many like the politicians, aggressive TV anchors and, more understandably, the families bereaved by 26/11 will. And for all the trends away from capital punishment noted above, it should be remembered that this is also the city which tacitly approved of the era of encounter killings staged by the police. These de facto executions helped bring an end to the worse of gang violence, but it also very probably killed off a few innocents, which is exactly what the long judicial process for capital punishment is meant to avoid.
To which many in the city would shrug, and say it is sad, but overall it worked, and there were none of the delays and wildly escalating costs of the Kasab trial. For a city always on the run and in pursuit of wealth, it is this part of the trial that has been the most annoying (along with the security restrictions on the neighbourhood near Arthur Road jail). But there is another uncomfortable result of the delay and that has been Kasab himself. Because while it is very easy to see Kasab-the-Terrorist as the "most hated man" in India, the reactions to Kasab-the-Kid-inthe-Dock are a bit more complex.
You can see this in the reactions of the police who have been guarding and dealing with him. While never failing in their strict duty, it has been possible to see a slightly softening in their tone as they describe his evident ignorance and naivety, his often disarmingly simple requests and even childishness, which can be seen in the fact that he is alive at all: while his comrades understood they would probably die, and did, when the moment came Kasab clung to life, which is why this drama is with us at all.
None of this should suggest that the police or lawyers have become fond of Kasab, but he is a familiar and understandable type, unlike cold and determined ideologues like Abu Jundal.
Unless he's managed the most amazing of acting jobs, Kasab is the simple small town kid who came to a big city and got caught up in things beyond his imagination. He could be the kid whistling in the cinema at the latest Eid blockbuster, or riding on top of trains, or hustling you into buying a dubious cellphone on the street or, for that matter, stealing your own cellphone, or maybe even becoming shooter with a gang, but always something recognisable to Mumbai.
And yet he did what he did on 26/11, which is a chilling thought since it suggests how easily people can flip. But if, to modify Hannah Arendt's phrase for Adolf Eichmann, he embodies not the banality, but the sheer ordinariness of evil, it still puts him somewhat short of that completely black bogeyman that all those vengeful voices in the media want to see strung up.
Some might even acknowledge that Kasab is what Mahatma Gandhi meant when he explained, in his magazine Harijan, in April, 1940, why he opposed capital punishment: "Under a State governed according to the principles of ahimsa, a murderer would be sent to a penitentiary and there given every chance of reforming himself. All crime is a kind of disease and should be treated as such." When Kasab walks up those steps, at least some in the city that he attacked will remember what Gandhi said.
Source: The Economic Times
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/how-kasab-might-change-mumbais-take-on-capital-punishment/articleshow/16094167.cms?curpg=2
[accessed on 1st September 2012]
Thursday, August 30, 2012
How will we kill Kasab? Let’s count the ways
"Death penalty diminishes us. It elevates the spurious notion of an eye for an eye as a desirable form of retribution"
By: Salil Tripathi
Soon after 26/11, Balasaheb Thackeray wanted him hanging in a public square. Perhaps Azad Maidan would do. Near the jhunka-bhakar stall where you can drink kala khatta and watch schoolboys play cricket. Or, perhaps in the ticket hall of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. Its floor was once bloodied, then it was wiped clean of bloodspots.
Let there be more blood.
How about the Gateway of India? Again, it could be somewhere near the Shivaji statue. Kasab to face the firing squad, looking at the rebuilt Taj. There, we rebuilt what you sought to destroy; there, your accomplices were killed; there, now you go—the rifles can point skyward, brought down at the command, the aim taken, shots fired.
How about beheading him in a public square as they do in those countries?
And then televise it—the networks would love it. The anchors will have a ring-side view, and they will describe, in graphic detail, as Kasab collapses—only once, not 166 times. See him writhe. Now, does that feel better?
Or we could do something else—be like Norway. There, Andres Breivik bombed the city centre and went to an island and killed teenagers. Seventy-seven people died. They tried Breivik. They found him sane. And then they sent him to jail for 21 years. It is unlikely he will ever get freed.
Two nations. Two men. Two evil crimes. Two deeds committed without remorse. And two verdicts.
Seeking revenge is a deeply personal emotion. The survivors and the families of the victims will naturally have a different perspective of closure. But they know that killing Kasab won’t bring their loved ones back. Some may rejoice at the verdict, some may feel justice is served. Some will cling on to the memories of their loved ones. And a few may think that this verdict, and this punishment—if carried out—responds to a visceral desire among Indians who want to get even, who want to avenge many other crimes, a philosophy sharpened by the wars, the riots, the murders, the explosions, and make Kasab, the one who got caught, the poster boy of all those crimes, and pay for it, many times over. They may not want any part of that.
The question is: is India a society or a lynch mob? Disclosure: I am against the death penalty. Not because it is not a deterrent—I don’t like it even if it is, because it is impossible to prove that it deters crimes not committed. Not because it is economically wiser to keep a person in jail, rather than spend on an appeals process which will add cost to the exchequer, because this isn’t about cost-benefit analysis.
But because it can get it wrong—advanced forensics in the US have shown that many times the wrong defendant is executed. The Indian Supreme Court has noticed errors, too, as 14 retired judges, including A.P. Shah, the former chief justice of Delhi high court, have pointed out. And also because it can be biased—defendants who are poor, from a minority community, or who are not of sound mind, are more likely to get the death penalty than those who are better-off or from the majority community. (Of course there are exceptions.)
And finally, because the death penalty diminishes us. It elevates the spurious notion of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a life for a life, as a desirable form of retribution. The death penalty gives the state the right to take the life of an individual, no matter how flawed.
Executing a murderer does not bring back any of his victims. The death penalty is driven by a desire for revenge, not justice. In succumbing to such vengeful feelings, we embrace the murderer’s inhumanity, and forget our own humanity.
Let the defendant who cannot be redeemed remain in jail, for life. Let him learn— not necessarily skills though that would be nice, but the ideas of remorse, of guilt, of shame, of repentance. Let him figure out how he can atone for what he did. Let us not do to him what he did to others, let us remind him why we are not like him. That is after all our strength, not weakness.
Source:
http://www.livemint.com/2012/08/30123926/How-will-we-kill-Kasab-Let8.html?h=A1
[accessed on 30th August 2012]
Justice A P Shah: India should join nations abolishing the death sentence
Pranab sits on clemency petitions of 11 death row convicts
Ajmal Kasab's mercy plea will be processed fast: Shinde
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
After six years on death row, spared for being a juvenile
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Take these men off death row
In no fewer than 13 cases, the Supreme Court has held the death sentence to have been wrongly given. The mistakes must be corrected before it’s too late.
With a dark and chilling feeling we recently read about the wrong Carlos who was executed in the United States for a crime he did not commit. An extraordinary investigation by a Columbia law professor and his team led to the revelation that due to a series of mistakes from investigation to trial, Texas executed Carlos De Luna for a crime committed by Carlos Hernandez. But it came too late for poor Carlos De Luna.
What happens if a death penalty is imposed by mistake? If the “mistakes” are still alive unlike poor Carlos, what should be done, especially when the final court of appeal has pronounced the judgments in error?
The Carlos case was one of mistaken identity. We have in India 13 mistakes of a different kind. What do Dayanidhi Bisoi, Saibanna, Ankush Maruti Shinde, Ambadas Laxman Shinde, Bapu Appa Shinde, Raju Mhasu Shinde, Rajya Appa Shinde, Surya @Suresh Shinde, Sattan, Upendra, Shivaji @ Dadya Shanker Alhat, Bantu and Mohan Anna Chavan have in common? They are all men waiting to be executed, 13 of them, a horribly ominous number.
The judgments by which the Supreme Court had sentenced them to death were declared “per incuriam” by subsequent Benches of the Supreme Court. The words per incuriam mean by carelessness or ignoring the statute or the law. But they will go to the gallows, in the name of the people, because of admittedly erroneous judgments, unless their sentences are commuted by the President.
Extraordinary admission
It was in 2009 that the Supreme Court made this extraordinary admission of error, but till date nothing has been done to correct the error. This is not about the correctness, or constitutionality or morality of capital punishment. This is about persons being sent to death on the basis of flawed judgments. These 13 men are not men of moment or men who you will remember, they are men unremembered and unsung and abandoned. But that does not mean they can be wrongly executed. In fact it is that much more important that we, governed by the Rule of Law, ensure that their fundamental rights and their human rights are not violated.
To understand why the judgments were declared erroneous one needs to go back to 1980, when the Constitution Bench of our Supreme Court in Bachan Singh vs State of Punjab, dealt in detail with the arguments for abolition and retention of the death penalty. It explained why there must be special and compelling reasons for sentencing a person to death: “The present legislative policy discernible from Section 235(2) read with Section 354(3) is that in fixing the degree of punishment or making the choice of sentence for various offences, including one under Section 302 of the Penal Code, the court should not confine its consideration “principally” or merely to the circumstances connected with the particular crime, but also give due consideration to the circumstances of the criminal.”
The Court held: “While considering the question of sentence to be imposed for the offence of murder under Section 302 of the Penal Code, the court must have regard to every relevant circumstance relating to the crime as well as the criminal.” And “in addition to the circumstances of the offence, due regard must be paid to the circumstances of the offender, also.” That the circumstances pertaining to the criminal must be given due weight is reiterated throughout the judgment.
Then in 1996 came Ravji @ Ramachandra vs State of Rajasthan which held that “it is the nature and gravity of the crime but not the criminal which are germane for consideration.” This was contrary to the binding dictum in Bachan Singh’s case and hence per incuriam. Judgments that are per incuriam have no precedentiary value and yet the Supreme Court followed Ravji, and imposed the death penalty in subsequent judgments.
In 2009, in Santosh Kumar Bariyar vs State of Maharashtra, the Supreme Court noted the error and admitted that, “We are not oblivious that the Ravji case has been followed in at least six decisions of this Court in which death punishment has been awarded in last nine years, but, in our opinion, it was rendered per incuriam … Shivaji v. State of Maharashtra, Mohan Anna Chavan v. State of Maharashtra, Bantu v. State of U.P., Surja Ram v. State of Rajasthan, Dayanidhi Bisoi v. State of Orissa and State of U.P. v. Sattan are the decisions where Ravji has been followed. It does not appear that this Court has considered any mitigating circumstance or a circumstance relating to criminal at the sentencing phase in most of these cases. It is apparent that Ravji has not only been considered but also relied upon as an authority on the point that in heinous crimes, circumstances relating to criminal are not pertinent.”
In addition, Bariyar declared that Saibanna vs State of Karnataka was also decided per incuriam. In Bariyar, the Supreme Court insisted that there be a “strict channelling of discretion” while deciding whether to impose the death penalty. It suggested a sentencing procedure and said that, “it is in the nature of safeguards and has an overarching embrace of rarest of rare dictum. Therefore, it is to be read with Article 21 and 14. …. Under section 235(2) and 354 (3) of the Criminal Procedure Code, there is a mandate as to a full fledged bifurcated hearing and recording of “special reasons”; if the court inclines to award death penalty. In the specific backdrop of sentencing in capital punishment, and that the matter attracts constitutional prescription in full force, it is incumbent on the sentencing court to oversee comprehensive compliance to both the provisions.”
Again, in 2010 in Dilip Tiwari vs State of Maharashtra, the Supreme Court referred to Bariyar’s case and held that though the crime warranted public abhorrence, “...We would, thus, follow Bachan Singh case and the principles therein rather than following the … Ravji case.” But Ravji Rao and Surja Ram were executed — on May 4, 1996 and April 7, 1997 respectively — pursuant to these flawed judgments. There can be no graver miscarriage of justice than this. The Supreme Court’s admission of error was too late for them. They were hanged, not because of mistaken identity as in Carlos’ case, but because of erroneous judgments.
Article 21 of the Constitution of India forbids the deprivation of life except according to the procedure established by law. Will the execution of the 13 men, abandoned to die by mistake, be in accordance with law, when the judgments are per incuriam? The law requires that the accused be heard before deciding on the sentence. It is not meant to be an empty formality. Why hear the accused before imposing the sentence if the circumstances of the offender are not germane to the decision making process? The Bachan Singh judgment has laid down the law clearly and the position was reiterated in Bariyar’s case where there is a candid admission that the cases of these 13 men have been wrongly decided.
Challenge to credibility
The credibility of our criminal justice system and the constitutional promise of equality before law will suffer a terrible blow if they are executed despite erroneous judgments. This article does not raise the larger question of retention or abolition of death penalty. It only argues for the administration of the death penalty in accordance with law.
The Supreme Court, even in India where the judges do not sit en banque, speaks as one Court. The voices we hear are not the voices of the different judges; what we hear is the Voice of the Court. Here the Supreme Court has acknowledged and named the judgments which were “in error”. Yet, nothing has been done in rectification.
The crimes committed by the 13 men must have been so abhorrent to the Supreme Court that the rarest of rare doctrine was invoked. But the law says that before the death penalty is imposed, the Court shall consider the facts relating to the offender. If they were not considered it was a mistake, but not an ordinary mistake. The authority of the state to carry out the sentences imposed by courts cannot extend to executing admitted errors. If the mistake is corrected by Presidential pardon, the 13 men will not go free. They still have to serve their sentences for the rest of their lives. They will not be pardoned. But we shall not have sent them to the gallows, by mistake. There is no time to lose, for those 13 men and for us too.
(Prabha Sridevan, a former Judge of the Madras High Court, is Chairperson, Intellectual Property Appellate Board.)
Courtesy : http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article3606856.ece
Saturday, June 23, 2012
President Pratibha Patil gives life to dead man (President Pratibha Patil had commuted the death sentences of 35 convicts to life imprisonment so far during her term as President.)
R Uday Kumar & Ravi Uppar,TNN | Jun 23, 2012, 04.25AM IST
BELGAUM (KARNAKATA): A day after TOI reported that President Pratibha Patil had commuted the death sentences of 35 convicts to life in prison, it came to light on Friday that one of the beneficiaries of her mercy died almost five years ago.
Bandu Tidke's sentence for the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl came from the President's office on June 2. It has raised doubts about whether the clemency decisions - for many convicted of murder and rape - on the advice of the Union home ministry were based on correct information or taken in haste.
In Tidke's case, either the state jail officials or Karnataka's home department and subsequently the Union home ministry had not informed the President's office about his death on October 18, 2007. Tidke was 31 years old and HIV-positive.
Sources in the state prisons department said Tidke's file had been moved to the Centre two to three years ago. Prisons minister A Narayanaswamy, however, said, "It takes some time for the President to consider after a file is moved. I think the file in this case was moved when the convict was alive."
Tidke was arrested for rape and murder in 2002. In 2005, he was given the death sentence by the Bagalkot district court. Since November 30, 2005, he was lodged in the Hindalga Jail in Belgaum.
According to police files, Tidke, a sugarcane cutter from Beed district in Maharashtra, migrated in 2002 to Bagalkot in Karnataka where he posed as a swamiji and stayed at a local mutt. That year, he dragged a 16-year-old girl from a nearby school to his room, raped and murdered her. He left the body there and escaped to Shirdi where he was arrested.
Tidke appealed in the high court in 2006 but the court turned down his plea. Justices S R Bannurmath and N Ananda described him "like a devil in the garb of a swami". He then sent a mercy plea to the President.
Five years too late
2002: Bandu Baburao Tidke, a sugarcane cutter from Beed district of Maharashtra migrates to Bagalkot in Karnataka. Dresses up like a swamiji and lives in a mutt. Drags a 16-year-old schoolgirl to the mutt, rapes and murders her. Flees to Shirdi where he is arrested.
2005: Bagalkot court sentences Tidke to death. Sent to Hindalga Jail in Belgaum.
2006: Tidke appeals to high court against death sentence, but court turns petition. Tidke found to be HIV positive.
October 18, 2007: Tidke dies in Belgaum government hospital.
June 2, 2012: President Pratibha Patil commutes long-dead Tidke's death sentence to life term.
[Source: Times of India; accessed on 23rd June 2012 See at http://sp.m.timesofindia.com/PDATOI/articleshow/14349473.cms]
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Man sentenced to death for rape and murder
The Mavelikara Additional District and Sessions Court-II on Thursday sentenced to death Viswarajan, 22, of Oachira who was found guilty of the rape and murder of a 34-year-old widow and the mother of a teenaged girl.
Pronouncing the sentence, the Judge A.Badarudheen said the court was awarding death penalty as it was the ‘rarest of rare cases.' The Court also asked the accused, Viswarajan, alias ‘Karumadi' of Santhosh Bhavan in Vayanakam in Oachira to pay a penalty of Rs.1 lakh to the victim's daughter. If the convicted person failed to pay the penalty, he would have to undergo additional Rigorous Imprisonment (RI) of six months.
Special Public Prosecutor S. Remanan Pillai said Viswarajan had also been sentenced to six months Rigorous Imprisonment (RI) under Section 342 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) (wrongful confinement) and five years RI under Section 376 read with 511 (attempt to rape). The sentences will, however, run concurrently.
Habitual offender
The judge observed that the accused was a habitual offender and was a threat to the community. Mr. Pillai said the accused had two charges of rape and assault against him in the Ochira police station pending trial and another case of abducting a minor girl and sexually exploiting her. The death sentence was based on ‘circumstantial evidence,' he said.
A large crowd of people were present when the verdict was pronounced at 11 a.m. The accused was brought out of the court nearly three hours later, at 2 p.m., and taken in a police vehicle to Thiruvananthapuram Central Jail at Poojapura. A heavy deployment of police under Kayamkulam Deputy Superintendent of Police S. Devamanohar, who also supervised the investigation, was present at the court.
The incident occurred at 7 p.m. on October 24, 2011 when the victim was returning home. The accused who was hiding in the dark grabbed the victim and beat her unconscious before sexually assaulting her. He later pushed her into a paddy field. The police and local people rushed her to a hospital. However, she died while being shifted to the Alappuzha Medical College Hospital. The investigation was led by Kayamkulam Circle Inspector A.N.Shanihan, who submitted the report to the court.
Source : http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/kerala/article3477458.ece
Sunday, May 6, 2012
‘Lack of territorial jurisdiction’ cited for refusal to execute Rajoana’s death sentence.
Chandigarh, Sun May 06 2012, 00:22 hrs
Lakhwinder Singh Jakhar, Superintendent, Central Jail, Patiala, who had been issued contempt notices by a local court for refusing to execute the death sentence of Balwant Singh Rajoana, has cited lack of territorial jurisdiction for refusing to execute the sentence.
In his reply filed on April 25, Jakhar stated that he acted bona fide and without any contempt towards the court. He also said Rajoana could not be hanged at that stage, because the death sentence of his accomplice Jagtar Singh Hawara had been commuted to life imprisonment by the Punjab and Haryana High Court and his (Hawara) appeal was pending before the Supreme Court.
A S Grewal, Additional Advocate General, Punjab, and counsel for the Jail Superintendent, said the Supreme Court judgement placed the onus on the Jail Superintendent to report such cases to higher authorities. The judgement avoided injustice where death sentences awarded to two accused for the same crime was commuted to life imprisonment for one and executed in the case of the other, he explained.
Rajoana had earlier refused to file a mercy petition before the President of India, and his mercy petition was filed by the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabhandhak Committee under Article 72 of the Constitution of India. The execution was stayed till the final order of the Apex Court in the appeals of his co-accused or till the order of the President of India, whichever was later. Rajoana was awarded death sentence by a CBI special court in July 2007, in the former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh assassination case.
On March 19, Jakhar had received a communique from the court of Shalini Nagpal that Rajoana be executed on March 31. In his communique to the judge, Jakhar expressed his inability to execute the sentence on account of “legal infirmities in procedure”.
The court had issued notice to Jakhar on March 27, asking him to explain why proceedings under the Contempt of Court Act should not be initiated against him. The case will now come up for hearing on June 6.
Source: Indian Express See http://www.indianexpress.com/news/lack-of-territorial-jurisdiction-cited-for-refusal-to-execute-rajoanas-death-sentence./945904/0 [accessed on 7th May 2012]
Contempt proceedings against jail official adjourned
HT Correspondent , Hindustan Times
Chandigarh, May 05, 2012
A Chandigarh court on Saturday adjourned the hearing in the contempt of court proceedings against Patiala jail superintendent Lakhwinder Singh Jakhar to June 6.
The court of additional district and sessions judge Shalini Nagpal adjourned the hearing for arguments on the reply filed by
Jakhar, saying "the court will take up the case on June 6 as there are a lot of other cases to be heard".
Jakhar, in his reply before the court on April 25, had tendered an unconditional apology for refusing to execute Beant Singh assassination convict Balwant Singh Rajoana. The court had issued a contempt of court notice to Jakhar for returning the death warrants.
"The superintendent, Patiala jail, has not once, but on two occasions, refused to execute the warrants of death sentence by way of written communication on March 19 and March 24. By doing this, he had intended to interfere with the due course of judicial proceedings, obstruct the administration of justice and also lower the authority of the court," the court had observed.
Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/Punjab/Patiala/Contempt-proceedings-against-jail-official-adjourned/SP-Article1-851309.aspx
[accessed on 7th May 2012]
Friday, May 4, 2012
Death sentence for beheading girl on campus
Press Trust of India | Updated: May 02, 2012 11:47 IST
Ranchi: A youth was today sentenced to death by a local court for beheading a girl student in a college campus in Ranchi on April 28 last year.
The District and Sessions Court of SH Kazmi pronounced the capital punishment against Vijendra Kumar for severing the head off of intermediate student Khusboo outside an examination hall.
The court had on April 26 convicted Kumar for the crime. Kumar, who hails from Jamshedpur, had beheaded Khusboo with a sharp weapon as soon as she came out of the examination
hall.
He was overpowered by other students and handed over to the Jharkhand police.
Source: http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/youth-gets-death-sentence-for-beheading-girl-205137 [accessed on 4th May 2012]
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Close call between life and death
Apr 14, 2012 - Rohit Raj DC
Considering the issue of death penalty in rarest of rare cases, a division bench of the Kerala High Court on Friday initiated a debate on giving harsher life term to the convicts while sparing the rope.
The Kerala High Court on Friday took a call on the death vs life debate for extreme crimes and a division bench that considered the question stood more in favour of life but did not seek an abolition of death penalty altogether.
While considering the references of death penalty given by various trial courts to 10 convicts, a division bench comprising Justices R. Basant and K. Vinod Chandran opined that a harsher life term (without parole, commutation or remission) should be more of a norm.
Among the death references considered by the court was that of one-handed Govindachamy, the convict in Soumya murder case.
Justice R. Basant, who retired on Friday, opined that death sentence and harsh life imprisonment can be considered by both the high court and the sessions courts. He expressed that both courts have powers to impose a harsher punishment.
According to Justice Basant, a larger bench of five judges should consider the matter and formulate guidelines on this aspect. However, Justice Vinod Chandran had a different opinion and observed that delaying a decision would only prolong the agony and trauma of the convicts.
He said that by a specific order, the apex court had not conferred any such power on trial courts.
Relying on the Supreme Court verdict on the famous Swami Sradhananda case, Justice Vinod Chandran opined: “I agree with Justice Basant on the issue of High Court having power to extend life sentences beyond 14 years. But I have a difference of opinion on sessions court having powers to decide the question.”
On formulating the guidelines, Justice Basant observed that a five-judge bench should arrive at a consensus on awarding death sentences in each case. “Unless a five-judge bench unanimously comes to the conclusion that a death sentence is the only option considering the gravity of the crime, the convict should be given a life term,” he said.
Justice Basant also opined that courts should consider Kerala’s social situation while awarding death sentences. “Kerala should set a model for other states in avoiding death sentences to convicts by extending the life term awarded to the victims,” he observed.
The matter will now go to the Acting Chief Justice Manjula Chellur who will constitute a single bench to take a final call in the issue.
Who holds the supreme power?
While the division bench unanimously agreed for giving extended life terms instead of gallows for those on death row, the two judges differed on who should have the power to decide the question.
While Justice R. Basant suggested that both the high court and the sessions court can wield the power to decide the issue, Justice K. Vinod Chandran was of the view that the power should be exercised by the high court only.
Interestingly, members of the bar too stood divided on the issue. “I cannot accept the view (expressed by Justice K. Vinod Chandran) that sessions court should not consider the question of extending the life term. Sessions courts pass verdicts after conducting the trial so they have every right to consider the issue,” said Advocate Sivan Madathil
Even if the session’s court commits a mistake it can be challenged at the high court and Supreme Court, he said.
However, director general of Prosecution Mr Asaf Ali argued that only Supreme Court can arrive at a decision on whether to extend life terms.
Nizhalkuthu: tale of unjustness
The film, Nizhalkuthu (Shadow Kill), coproduced by Adoor Gopalakrishnan, is about the inherent unjustness of certain punishments.
The film is set in the 1940s in a village of Travancore, British India. Kaliyappan, the last hangman of Travancore dynasty, spends all the time drinking and seeking atonement.
The reason for this self-destruction has been the remorse born out of the feeling that the last man he hanged was an innocent. The late Oduvil Unnikrishnan portrayed Kaliyappan.
10 Who await
Govindachamy - Soumya rape and murder
Kanakaraj - Puthoor Sheela murder case
Antony alias Anthappan - Aluva murder killing 6 persons.
Unni - Kanichikulangara case
Reji Kumar - murdering wife and four children in Pattambi
Lawrence - Idukki murder
Ramachandran - Vandoor case for killing two women
Pradeep Borah - murdering a couple from Orrisa.
Jojo alias Jomon - murder of mother and grandfather in Idukki
Shaju alias Unni - Kollam murder case
Ripper Chandran was the last person to be hanged in the state, in 1991.
source: http://www.asianage.com/india/close-call-between-life-and-death-714
[accessed on 15th April 2012]
Considering the issue of death penalty in rarest of rare cases, a division bench of the Kerala High Court on Friday initiated a debate on giving harsher life term to the convicts while sparing the rope.
The Kerala High Court on Friday took a call on the death vs life debate for extreme crimes and a division bench that considered the question stood more in favour of life but did not seek an abolition of death penalty altogether.
While considering the references of death penalty given by various trial courts to 10 convicts, a division bench comprising Justices R. Basant and K. Vinod Chandran opined that a harsher life term (without parole, commutation or remission) should be more of a norm.
Among the death references considered by the court was that of one-handed Govindachamy, the convict in Soumya murder case.
Justice R. Basant, who retired on Friday, opined that death sentence and harsh life imprisonment can be considered by both the high court and the sessions courts. He expressed that both courts have powers to impose a harsher punishment.
According to Justice Basant, a larger bench of five judges should consider the matter and formulate guidelines on this aspect. However, Justice Vinod Chandran had a different opinion and observed that delaying a decision would only prolong the agony and trauma of the convicts.
He said that by a specific order, the apex court had not conferred any such power on trial courts.
Relying on the Supreme Court verdict on the famous Swami Sradhananda case, Justice Vinod Chandran opined: “I agree with Justice Basant on the issue of High Court having power to extend life sentences beyond 14 years. But I have a difference of opinion on sessions court having powers to decide the question.”
On formulating the guidelines, Justice Basant observed that a five-judge bench should arrive at a consensus on awarding death sentences in each case. “Unless a five-judge bench unanimously comes to the conclusion that a death sentence is the only option considering the gravity of the crime, the convict should be given a life term,” he said.
Justice Basant also opined that courts should consider Kerala’s social situation while awarding death sentences. “Kerala should set a model for other states in avoiding death sentences to convicts by extending the life term awarded to the victims,” he observed.
The matter will now go to the Acting Chief Justice Manjula Chellur who will constitute a single bench to take a final call in the issue.
Who holds the supreme power?
While the division bench unanimously agreed for giving extended life terms instead of gallows for those on death row, the two judges differed on who should have the power to decide the question.
While Justice R. Basant suggested that both the high court and the sessions court can wield the power to decide the issue, Justice K. Vinod Chandran was of the view that the power should be exercised by the high court only.
Interestingly, members of the bar too stood divided on the issue. “I cannot accept the view (expressed by Justice K. Vinod Chandran) that sessions court should not consider the question of extending the life term. Sessions courts pass verdicts after conducting the trial so they have every right to consider the issue,” said Advocate Sivan Madathil
Even if the session’s court commits a mistake it can be challenged at the high court and Supreme Court, he said.
However, director general of Prosecution Mr Asaf Ali argued that only Supreme Court can arrive at a decision on whether to extend life terms.
Nizhalkuthu: tale of unjustness
The film, Nizhalkuthu (Shadow Kill), coproduced by Adoor Gopalakrishnan, is about the inherent unjustness of certain punishments.
The film is set in the 1940s in a village of Travancore, British India. Kaliyappan, the last hangman of Travancore dynasty, spends all the time drinking and seeking atonement.
The reason for this self-destruction has been the remorse born out of the feeling that the last man he hanged was an innocent. The late Oduvil Unnikrishnan portrayed Kaliyappan.
10 Who await
Govindachamy - Soumya rape and murder
Kanakaraj - Puthoor Sheela murder case
Antony alias Anthappan - Aluva murder killing 6 persons.
Unni - Kanichikulangara case
Reji Kumar - murdering wife and four children in Pattambi
Lawrence - Idukki murder
Ramachandran - Vandoor case for killing two women
Pradeep Borah - murdering a couple from Orrisa.
Jojo alias Jomon - murder of mother and grandfather in Idukki
Shaju alias Unni - Kollam murder case
Ripper Chandran was the last person to be hanged in the state, in 1991.
source: http://www.asianage.com/india/close-call-between-life-and-death-714
[accessed on 15th April 2012]
Mercy petition: Court raps ‘high drama’ in Rajoana case
Express news service : New Delhi, Fri Mar 30 2012, 00:08 hrs
The Supreme Court on Thursday expressed concern over political considerations playing a role in disposal of mercy petitions, indirectly referring to the case of Balwant Singh Rajoana, who was put on death row for the killing of Punjab Chief Beant Singh, as a “telling situation”.
The court observed that a “high drama” was played out in the Rajoana case, and clemency was sought for someone who had assassinated the former chief minister of Punjab.
The remarks from the apex court came a day after Centre stayed Rajoana’s scheduled execution on March 31 after Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal met President Pratibha Patil on Wednesday seeking clemency for Rajoana.
Rajoana’s case had split the political camp with the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab pleading for clemency, while the BJP and the Congress had maintained that law should take its course.
A CBI court had awarded the death sentence to Rajoana and Jagtar Singh Hawara in the Beant Singh case on August 1, 2007. Three others — Lakhwinder Singh, Gurmit Singh and Shamsher Singh — were sentenced to life imprisonment for hatching the conspiracy to kill Beant Singh.
The Chandigarh court had issued the death warrant to the Patiala jail authorities, asking them to hang Rajoana on March 31.
Rajoana had chosen not to appeal against the death penalty.
“What has happened in last four days in a particular state is a telling situation. If the decision was taken at an appropriate time public exchequer would have been saved of many crores of Rupees. Entire thing is a drama,” a bench of Justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhaya said.
The court rued how a person convicted of a murder of a chief minister, who has been found guilty of terrorism has found political party support.
The court was hearing an appeal by Devender Pal Singh Bhullar, who was awarded death penalty for triggering a bomb blast here in September 1993 on Raisina Road outside the Youth Congress office killing nine people, to commute his death penalty to life term owing to the “inordinate delay” by the government to decide on his mercy plea.
Curfew imposed in Gurdaspur
Indefinite curfew was imposed in Gurdaspur on Thursday after a clash between two groups protesting the death sentence of Balwant Singh Rajoana in which a youth was killed. The youth, Jaspal Singh was a resident of Sidhwan village in Gurdaspur district.
Another person Ranjit Singh, who sustained bullet injury, was rushed to a hospital in Amritsar in a critical condition. A magisterial probe has been ordered into the incident.
Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/mercy-petition-court-raps-high-drama-in-rajoana-case/930258/2
Indian Express
The Supreme Court on Thursday expressed concern over political considerations playing a role in disposal of mercy petitions, indirectly referring to the case of Balwant Singh Rajoana, who was put on death row for the killing of Punjab Chief Beant Singh, as a “telling situation”.
The court observed that a “high drama” was played out in the Rajoana case, and clemency was sought for someone who had assassinated the former chief minister of Punjab.
The remarks from the apex court came a day after Centre stayed Rajoana’s scheduled execution on March 31 after Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal met President Pratibha Patil on Wednesday seeking clemency for Rajoana.
Rajoana’s case had split the political camp with the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab pleading for clemency, while the BJP and the Congress had maintained that law should take its course.
A CBI court had awarded the death sentence to Rajoana and Jagtar Singh Hawara in the Beant Singh case on August 1, 2007. Three others — Lakhwinder Singh, Gurmit Singh and Shamsher Singh — were sentenced to life imprisonment for hatching the conspiracy to kill Beant Singh.
The Chandigarh court had issued the death warrant to the Patiala jail authorities, asking them to hang Rajoana on March 31.
Rajoana had chosen not to appeal against the death penalty.
“What has happened in last four days in a particular state is a telling situation. If the decision was taken at an appropriate time public exchequer would have been saved of many crores of Rupees. Entire thing is a drama,” a bench of Justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhaya said.
The court rued how a person convicted of a murder of a chief minister, who has been found guilty of terrorism has found political party support.
The court was hearing an appeal by Devender Pal Singh Bhullar, who was awarded death penalty for triggering a bomb blast here in September 1993 on Raisina Road outside the Youth Congress office killing nine people, to commute his death penalty to life term owing to the “inordinate delay” by the government to decide on his mercy plea.
Curfew imposed in Gurdaspur
Indefinite curfew was imposed in Gurdaspur on Thursday after a clash between two groups protesting the death sentence of Balwant Singh Rajoana in which a youth was killed. The youth, Jaspal Singh was a resident of Sidhwan village in Gurdaspur district.
Another person Ranjit Singh, who sustained bullet injury, was rushed to a hospital in Amritsar in a critical condition. A magisterial probe has been ordered into the incident.
Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/mercy-petition-court-raps-high-drama-in-rajoana-case/930258/2
Indian Express
Friday, March 30, 2012
The Hindu : Opinion / Editorial : Halt all hangings
With only three days left for his execution, Balwant Singh Rajoana has got a temporary reprieve — ironically against his own steely determination to go to the gallows. Rajoana admitted his part in the suicide bombing of Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh, rejected counsel, refused to cross-examine witnesses, and accepted the death penalty, arguing that he would not ask for mercy from a government that called him a terrorist but was unconscionably insensitive towards the victims of state-sponsored communal pogroms. Rajoana's stand cannot take away from the enormity of his crime, for which he has been duly and correctly convicted by a court of law. Yet, he must live if only for the state to demolish his belief that it is a “monster” ready to turn on its own people. Abolitionists around the world argue against the death penalty mainly for two reasons: it has not been proved to be a deterrent and a flawed judicial process can wrongly, and irrevocably, send a person to his death. But over and above these reasoned considerations is the sheer barbarity of taking a human life even under the due process of law. Besides, there is no humane way of executing the death sentence. Death by hanging — the preferred method in India — is unspeakably cruel.
The pain and anxiety of the death-row prisoner going to the gallows — “cutting a life short when it is in full tide” — was brilliantly captured by George Orwell in his searing 1931 essay, ‘A Hanging'. Eighty years on, India is still to abolish capital punishment even as 96 countries around the world have done away with the practice with another 34 countries observing unofficial moratoria on executions. In India, a curious pattern has emerged lately. Courts are increasingly imposing the death penalty on convicts even as pending executions are put off to avert untoward political and social consequences. Just months ago, the Tamil Nadu Assembly made a plea for presidential clemency for the three death-row convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Vadra showed extraordinary strength of character when they pleaded for the commutation of the death sentence awarded to Nalini. Punjab under Parkash Singh Badal observed a violent bandh in response to the news that Rajoana was to be hanged — the pressure forced the Centre to stay the execution. Unfortunately, these collective pressures and the uneven response they generate have added yet another element of arbitrariness to the entire process. It has been The Hindu's consistent stand that we must do away with capital punishment. Mahatma Gandhi's India cannot afford to lag behind other countries in embracing this progressive step.
Source: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article3259077.ece#.T3Xbqdr-Ia8.blogger
The pain and anxiety of the death-row prisoner going to the gallows — “cutting a life short when it is in full tide” — was brilliantly captured by George Orwell in his searing 1931 essay, ‘A Hanging'. Eighty years on, India is still to abolish capital punishment even as 96 countries around the world have done away with the practice with another 34 countries observing unofficial moratoria on executions. In India, a curious pattern has emerged lately. Courts are increasingly imposing the death penalty on convicts even as pending executions are put off to avert untoward political and social consequences. Just months ago, the Tamil Nadu Assembly made a plea for presidential clemency for the three death-row convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Vadra showed extraordinary strength of character when they pleaded for the commutation of the death sentence awarded to Nalini. Punjab under Parkash Singh Badal observed a violent bandh in response to the news that Rajoana was to be hanged — the pressure forced the Centre to stay the execution. Unfortunately, these collective pressures and the uneven response they generate have added yet another element of arbitrariness to the entire process. It has been The Hindu's consistent stand that we must do away with capital punishment. Mahatma Gandhi's India cannot afford to lag behind other countries in embracing this progressive step.
Source: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article3259077.ece#.T3Xbqdr-Ia8.blogger
The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : Why Balwant Singh Rajoana shouldn't be hanged
March 29, 2012 
The Centre has stayed the hanging. Now it must commute the sentence.
“And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?”
W. B. Yeats, Easter 1916
It is a relief that the Centre has stayed the hanging of Balwant Singh Rajoana. Though I have represented many such prisoners, he is not my client. However, his case has disturbing implications for our country, our democracy and, I dare say, for our humanity.
Balwant Singh was a member of the Babbar Khalsa and a party to the assassination of Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh. Sixteen other persons died in the blast. He was arrested in December 1995, and sentenced to death in 2006. The High Court confirmed his death sentence in October 2010 and a few days ago he was given his execution. He has spent the last 16 years in prison.
What the records say
Of all those prosecuted in this case, Balwant Singh alone confessed his guilt. He refused to contest the prosecution's charges, challenge its evidence, engage a lawyer or accept a court-appointed lawyer. Instead, he spoke from the dock and from the prison through statements to the courts and letters to the judges. His story, as reproduced in the courts' records, is extracted below.
Balwant Singh tied the belt containing the explosives on Dilawar Singh who had blown himself up while killing the chief minister. He said his conscience would not permit him to deny his role in the killing when Dilawar and others had sacrificed their lives for it. A Punjabi couplet in his handwriting was found by the police: “My comrades died in the hope that I render their pain into a song. If I keep quiet, their souls will not be at peace.”
Balwant Singh explained his actions. He described the deep wounds on the Sikh psyche caused by the despoiling of the Golden Temple by the security forces during Operation Blue Star. He spoke of the pogrom following Indira Gandhi's assassination, where Sikhs were burnt, mutilated and left for carrion, funeral rites denied, when women were dishonoured, the youth emasculated and homes burnt. He asked the Chief Justice who were the terrorists: those who did these acts or those who defended the victims? He said human beings can fight such injustice and oppression only by becoming human bombs and sacrificing themselves. Balwant Singh said the government of this country had killed its own people. He said Beant Singh had licensed fake encounter killings, abductions, and secret cremations which remained unpunished to date. Balwant Singh said he did not regret his actions. He said the government had mocked Sikh sentiments by honouring and promoting those that led this pogrom. He did not want to beg for his life, and if the consequence of his rebellion was a death sentence, he would embrace it willingly. Balwant Singh refused to appeal to the Supreme Court and instructed his friends and family not to petition the government for mercy. He also turned away social, religious and political groups wanting to petition the government. He said he wanted to live with respect and dignity and if the state wanted to kill him, he wanted to die honourably. Balwant Singh has written his will and donated his organs for the use of others.
Commute the sentence
The State and Central governments have powers to commute death sentences after their final judicial confirmation. This power, unlike judicial power, is of the widest amplitude and un-circumscribed, except that its exercise must be bona fide. Issues often alien and irrelevant to legal adjudication — morality, public good, social and policy considerations — are intrinsically germane to the exercise of the government's powers. These powers exist because in appropriate cases the strict requirements of law need to be tempered and departed from to reach a truly just outcome in the widest sense of the word. The government's powers to commute a death sentence thus operate as a national conscience.
Every citizen has a right to petition the government to commute any death sentence, since the state's power to take life emanates from the people and executions are carried out in our name. As one who opposes the death penalty on the grounds that the state should not have the right to take life, it is irrelevant whether the condemned prisoner wants to live or die. I therefore petition the government to commute Balwant Singh's death sentence.
Indeed, I find myself stricken with paralysis in the face of his compelling, courageous and principled position. Incriminating evidence against accused persons is routinely challenged by them in courts, even though many of them are actually guilty. The staunchest political beliefs wilt under the threat of a death sentence or lifelong incarceration. Balwant Singh's courage, conviction and honesty in the face of this threat mark him as one apart. That his cause is not our cause does not diminish our respect for him or mitigate our collective loss in the event of his execution.
Balwant Singh's refusal or the reluctance of any citizen or organisation to petition the state for commutation does not preclude the state from suo moto reviewing his case. The government is obliged to do so, for it, and not the courts, have the final word in such matters.
The use of the death penalty in such cases is extremely problematic and potentially divisive. Balwant Singh's case graphically illustrates a spiral of violence, revenge and reprisals. Further violence, albeit state-sanctioned, could be used to legitimise earlier violence and perpetuate the spiral. Let us show that the justice we administer is not victor's justice but one tempered by humility, compassion and humanity.
The Punjab troubles are behind us now, but the ghosts still linger. In the name of India's territorial integrity, the government used questionable methods to put down the Khalistan movement. Will executing Balwant Singh do us credit? When, as a nation, we have condoned the government's excesses, can we not now reconcile with Balwant Singh? Has not enough blood been shed? Will we remain silent in the face of yet more blood-letting to avenge an old feud? O, when may it suffice?
(The author is a lawyer practising in the Bombay High Court.)
Source: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article3255057.ece#.T3XarKwcFw8.blogger
The Centre has stayed the hanging. Now it must commute the sentence.
“And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?”
W. B. Yeats, Easter 1916
It is a relief that the Centre has stayed the hanging of Balwant Singh Rajoana. Though I have represented many such prisoners, he is not my client. However, his case has disturbing implications for our country, our democracy and, I dare say, for our humanity.
Balwant Singh was a member of the Babbar Khalsa and a party to the assassination of Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh. Sixteen other persons died in the blast. He was arrested in December 1995, and sentenced to death in 2006. The High Court confirmed his death sentence in October 2010 and a few days ago he was given his execution. He has spent the last 16 years in prison.
What the records say
Of all those prosecuted in this case, Balwant Singh alone confessed his guilt. He refused to contest the prosecution's charges, challenge its evidence, engage a lawyer or accept a court-appointed lawyer. Instead, he spoke from the dock and from the prison through statements to the courts and letters to the judges. His story, as reproduced in the courts' records, is extracted below.
Balwant Singh tied the belt containing the explosives on Dilawar Singh who had blown himself up while killing the chief minister. He said his conscience would not permit him to deny his role in the killing when Dilawar and others had sacrificed their lives for it. A Punjabi couplet in his handwriting was found by the police: “My comrades died in the hope that I render their pain into a song. If I keep quiet, their souls will not be at peace.”
Balwant Singh explained his actions. He described the deep wounds on the Sikh psyche caused by the despoiling of the Golden Temple by the security forces during Operation Blue Star. He spoke of the pogrom following Indira Gandhi's assassination, where Sikhs were burnt, mutilated and left for carrion, funeral rites denied, when women were dishonoured, the youth emasculated and homes burnt. He asked the Chief Justice who were the terrorists: those who did these acts or those who defended the victims? He said human beings can fight such injustice and oppression only by becoming human bombs and sacrificing themselves. Balwant Singh said the government of this country had killed its own people. He said Beant Singh had licensed fake encounter killings, abductions, and secret cremations which remained unpunished to date. Balwant Singh said he did not regret his actions. He said the government had mocked Sikh sentiments by honouring and promoting those that led this pogrom. He did not want to beg for his life, and if the consequence of his rebellion was a death sentence, he would embrace it willingly. Balwant Singh refused to appeal to the Supreme Court and instructed his friends and family not to petition the government for mercy. He also turned away social, religious and political groups wanting to petition the government. He said he wanted to live with respect and dignity and if the state wanted to kill him, he wanted to die honourably. Balwant Singh has written his will and donated his organs for the use of others.
Commute the sentence
The State and Central governments have powers to commute death sentences after their final judicial confirmation. This power, unlike judicial power, is of the widest amplitude and un-circumscribed, except that its exercise must be bona fide. Issues often alien and irrelevant to legal adjudication — morality, public good, social and policy considerations — are intrinsically germane to the exercise of the government's powers. These powers exist because in appropriate cases the strict requirements of law need to be tempered and departed from to reach a truly just outcome in the widest sense of the word. The government's powers to commute a death sentence thus operate as a national conscience.
Every citizen has a right to petition the government to commute any death sentence, since the state's power to take life emanates from the people and executions are carried out in our name. As one who opposes the death penalty on the grounds that the state should not have the right to take life, it is irrelevant whether the condemned prisoner wants to live or die. I therefore petition the government to commute Balwant Singh's death sentence.
Indeed, I find myself stricken with paralysis in the face of his compelling, courageous and principled position. Incriminating evidence against accused persons is routinely challenged by them in courts, even though many of them are actually guilty. The staunchest political beliefs wilt under the threat of a death sentence or lifelong incarceration. Balwant Singh's courage, conviction and honesty in the face of this threat mark him as one apart. That his cause is not our cause does not diminish our respect for him or mitigate our collective loss in the event of his execution.
Balwant Singh's refusal or the reluctance of any citizen or organisation to petition the state for commutation does not preclude the state from suo moto reviewing his case. The government is obliged to do so, for it, and not the courts, have the final word in such matters.
The use of the death penalty in such cases is extremely problematic and potentially divisive. Balwant Singh's case graphically illustrates a spiral of violence, revenge and reprisals. Further violence, albeit state-sanctioned, could be used to legitimise earlier violence and perpetuate the spiral. Let us show that the justice we administer is not victor's justice but one tempered by humility, compassion and humanity.
The Punjab troubles are behind us now, but the ghosts still linger. In the name of India's territorial integrity, the government used questionable methods to put down the Khalistan movement. Will executing Balwant Singh do us credit? When, as a nation, we have condoned the government's excesses, can we not now reconcile with Balwant Singh? Has not enough blood been shed? Will we remain silent in the face of yet more blood-letting to avenge an old feud? O, when may it suffice?
(The author is a lawyer practising in the Bombay High Court.)
Source: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article3255057.ece#.T3XarKwcFw8.blogger
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Balwant Singh Rajoana gets a reprieve as Centre bows to Akali pressure
TNN | Mar 29, 2012, 02.04AM IST
NEW DELHI: Balwant Singh Rajoana, convicted for the assassination of Punjab CM Beant Singh, received an extraordinary reprieve three days before his death sentence was to be executed, with the Centre buckling under the high-pressure advocacy of the Akali Dal government. President Pratibha Patil accepted a clemency petition from Punjab CM Parkash Singh Badal and his son Sukhbir Badal on Wednesday, a move that is seen to have the Centre's concurrence. The Badals came to Delhi at the behest the Akal Takht, the temporal seat of the Sikhs that directed the Punjab government to stall Rajoana's hanging.
This will be the third high profile death sentence to be subject to political pressure. The assassins of ex-PM Rajiv Gandhi and Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru being the other two. The decision to put Rajoana's execution on hold will put in motion a fresh process as the petition is sent by the Rashtrapati Bhawan to the home ministry for its consideration and advice.
The home ministry in its letter to the Punjab home department has said that as per procedure regarding mercy in death sentence cases, the execution has been stayed till the order of the Supreme Court or the President (whichever is later). Although India's recent vote against Sri Lanka relates to foreign policy, it was also a case of the government failing to resist domestic political pressure brought to bear by Tamil Nadu parties, including its ally DMK.
The Centre's decision comes in the wake of unrest in parts of Punjab, J&K with clashes between Sikh and right-wing Hindu groups. While the Akalis backed the plea, Congress also has not vociferously opposed it, despite Beant Singh having been a party leader, who was credited with providing sterling leadership that helped end terrorism in Punjab.
A Rashtrapati Bhawan spokesperson said that the President had received Rajoana's clemency petition and sent to the union home ministry. "The President met the Punjab CM and took the petition. It has been sent to the home ministry for consideration," the official said. Rajoana is a Babbar Khalsa International terrorist convicted in the assassination of Beant Singh in 1995.
The petition moved by Sikh religious body SGPC and Delhi Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee forwarded by the Punjab CM to the President. Badal also met PM earlier in the day. Beant Singh had taken on Khalistani groups by steadfastly standing by former super-cop K P S Gill who was then director general of police in Punjab. Rajoana's co-conspirator Dilawar Singh, who was the human bomb, killed Beant Singh at the high security Punjab civil secretariat on August 31, 1995.
While jailed Jagtar Singh Hawara was the mastermind of the assassination, Rajoana was the second human bomb in case the first assassin failed to kill Beant Singh. The Punjab and Haryana High Court had in October, 2010, had upheld the death sentence for Rajoana, but changed the capital punishment given to Hawara to life imprisonment. Rajoana had refused to challenge the death sentence awarded to him.
Earlier Human Rights Watch had called for a halt to the execution describing hanging as "inhuman punishment." "The death penalty is always wrong and the Indian government should immediately stop this execution," said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director of Human Rights Watch. "Beyond that, executing Rajoana would merely continue the cycle of distrust between members of the Sikh community and the Indian state that has long divided communities." Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances as an inherently irreversible, inhumane punishment. "The Indian government has rightly not carried out executions for nearly a decade," Ganguly said. "It should now officially declare a moratorium, commute all existing death sentences, and then abolish the death penalty for all crimes," she added.
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Balwant-Singh-Rajoana-gets-a-reprieve-as-Centre-bows-to-Akali-pressure/articleshow/12447892.cms [accessed on 29th March 2012]
NEW DELHI: Balwant Singh Rajoana, convicted for the assassination of Punjab CM Beant Singh, received an extraordinary reprieve three days before his death sentence was to be executed, with the Centre buckling under the high-pressure advocacy of the Akali Dal government. President Pratibha Patil accepted a clemency petition from Punjab CM Parkash Singh Badal and his son Sukhbir Badal on Wednesday, a move that is seen to have the Centre's concurrence. The Badals came to Delhi at the behest the Akal Takht, the temporal seat of the Sikhs that directed the Punjab government to stall Rajoana's hanging.
This will be the third high profile death sentence to be subject to political pressure. The assassins of ex-PM Rajiv Gandhi and Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru being the other two. The decision to put Rajoana's execution on hold will put in motion a fresh process as the petition is sent by the Rashtrapati Bhawan to the home ministry for its consideration and advice.
The home ministry in its letter to the Punjab home department has said that as per procedure regarding mercy in death sentence cases, the execution has been stayed till the order of the Supreme Court or the President (whichever is later). Although India's recent vote against Sri Lanka relates to foreign policy, it was also a case of the government failing to resist domestic political pressure brought to bear by Tamil Nadu parties, including its ally DMK.
The Centre's decision comes in the wake of unrest in parts of Punjab, J&K with clashes between Sikh and right-wing Hindu groups. While the Akalis backed the plea, Congress also has not vociferously opposed it, despite Beant Singh having been a party leader, who was credited with providing sterling leadership that helped end terrorism in Punjab.
A Rashtrapati Bhawan spokesperson said that the President had received Rajoana's clemency petition and sent to the union home ministry. "The President met the Punjab CM and took the petition. It has been sent to the home ministry for consideration," the official said. Rajoana is a Babbar Khalsa International terrorist convicted in the assassination of Beant Singh in 1995.
The petition moved by Sikh religious body SGPC and Delhi Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee forwarded by the Punjab CM to the President. Badal also met PM earlier in the day. Beant Singh had taken on Khalistani groups by steadfastly standing by former super-cop K P S Gill who was then director general of police in Punjab. Rajoana's co-conspirator Dilawar Singh, who was the human bomb, killed Beant Singh at the high security Punjab civil secretariat on August 31, 1995.
While jailed Jagtar Singh Hawara was the mastermind of the assassination, Rajoana was the second human bomb in case the first assassin failed to kill Beant Singh. The Punjab and Haryana High Court had in October, 2010, had upheld the death sentence for Rajoana, but changed the capital punishment given to Hawara to life imprisonment. Rajoana had refused to challenge the death sentence awarded to him.
Earlier Human Rights Watch had called for a halt to the execution describing hanging as "inhuman punishment." "The death penalty is always wrong and the Indian government should immediately stop this execution," said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director of Human Rights Watch. "Beyond that, executing Rajoana would merely continue the cycle of distrust between members of the Sikh community and the Indian state that has long divided communities." Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances as an inherently irreversible, inhumane punishment. "The Indian government has rightly not carried out executions for nearly a decade," Ganguly said. "It should now officially declare a moratorium, commute all existing death sentences, and then abolish the death penalty for all crimes," she added.
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Balwant-Singh-Rajoana-gets-a-reprieve-as-Centre-bows-to-Akali-pressure/articleshow/12447892.cms [accessed on 29th March 2012]
Thursday, March 15, 2012
India set to break death penalty mortarium, Balwant Singh Rajoana’s Black warrants issued
By Gurtej Singh
Published: March 14, 2012
Chandigarh/Patiala, Punjab (February 14, 2012): As per media reports “Black Warrants” for the execusion of Bhai Balwant Singh Rajoana, who has been sentenced death penalty in former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh’s assassination case, reached Patiala Central Jail authorities on February 13, 2012 and he will be hanged in Patiala central jail at 9 am on March 31.
CM Beant Singh’s regime carried brutal and mass level killings of civilian Sikh population of Punjab. On 31 August, 1995 CM Beant Singh was killed in a plotted Bomb blast. Bhai Dilawar Singh carried out the blast and died during the incident. Bhai Jagtar Singh Hawara, Bhai Balwant Singh Rajoana, Bhai Paramjeet Singh Bheora and Bhai Jagtar Singh Tara are the prominent among those charged for assassinating CM Beant Singh. After trial Jargat Singh Hawara and Balwant Singh Rajoana were sentenced to death by Trial court. Punjab and Haryana High Court later reduced the sentence of Jagtar Singh Hawara to life imprisonment but confirmed the death sentence given to Balwant Singh Rajoana.
It is notable that Balwant Singh Rajoana had confessed his involvement and expressed no faith in Indian judiciary. He refused to defend himself in the court and accepted the sentence. He had accused Indian courts for applying dual standards of law and accused Indian system for shielding culprits of Sikh genocide 1984.
As per media reports in the state of Punjab this is going to be the first execution during the last 24 years. Chandigarh additional sessions judge Shalini Nagpal has issued the orders implementation of the death warrants. It must be mentioned that Rajoana did not challenge his conviction.
Rajoana is already facing trial in another court case at Patiala. The jail authorities of Patiala have written to DGP jails, seeking clarification regarding whether a death warrant can be carried out when the convict is undergoing trial in another case.
Balwant Singh is a native of village Rajoana Kalan, Raikot (Ludhiana). He had already announced to donate his eyes and other body parts after his death. In his will, he had expressed desire that his eyes should be transplanted to Hazoori Ragi of Darbar Sahib, visually impaired Bhai Lakhwinder Singh.
He will be the first person to be hanged to death after Dhananjoy Chatterjee of Kolkata in August 2004 who was sentenced to death pertaining to case of raping and murdering Hetal Parekh in her house in Bhowanipore on March 5, 1990.
Deputy superintendent, Patiala jail, Rajan Kapoor said he has information about the execution orders but did not divulge details in reagrd to the preparations in jail for Rajoana’s hanging. especially owing to the fact that Punjab has no hangman currently in the state. The jail officials have taken up this issue with higher authorities. Advocate Navkiran Singh informed during a radio talk show on “Punjabi Radio USA” that death warrants issued by a court could only be interfered by a court.
Source: http://www.sikhsiyasat.net/2012/03/14/india-set-to-break-deathpenalty-mortarium-balwant-singh-rajoanas-black-warrants-issued/ [accessed on 15th March 2012]
Published: March 14, 2012
Chandigarh/Patiala, Punjab (February 14, 2012): As per media reports “Black Warrants” for the execusion of Bhai Balwant Singh Rajoana, who has been sentenced death penalty in former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh’s assassination case, reached Patiala Central Jail authorities on February 13, 2012 and he will be hanged in Patiala central jail at 9 am on March 31.
CM Beant Singh’s regime carried brutal and mass level killings of civilian Sikh population of Punjab. On 31 August, 1995 CM Beant Singh was killed in a plotted Bomb blast. Bhai Dilawar Singh carried out the blast and died during the incident. Bhai Jagtar Singh Hawara, Bhai Balwant Singh Rajoana, Bhai Paramjeet Singh Bheora and Bhai Jagtar Singh Tara are the prominent among those charged for assassinating CM Beant Singh. After trial Jargat Singh Hawara and Balwant Singh Rajoana were sentenced to death by Trial court. Punjab and Haryana High Court later reduced the sentence of Jagtar Singh Hawara to life imprisonment but confirmed the death sentence given to Balwant Singh Rajoana.
It is notable that Balwant Singh Rajoana had confessed his involvement and expressed no faith in Indian judiciary. He refused to defend himself in the court and accepted the sentence. He had accused Indian courts for applying dual standards of law and accused Indian system for shielding culprits of Sikh genocide 1984.
As per media reports in the state of Punjab this is going to be the first execution during the last 24 years. Chandigarh additional sessions judge Shalini Nagpal has issued the orders implementation of the death warrants. It must be mentioned that Rajoana did not challenge his conviction.
Rajoana is already facing trial in another court case at Patiala. The jail authorities of Patiala have written to DGP jails, seeking clarification regarding whether a death warrant can be carried out when the convict is undergoing trial in another case.
Balwant Singh is a native of village Rajoana Kalan, Raikot (Ludhiana). He had already announced to donate his eyes and other body parts after his death. In his will, he had expressed desire that his eyes should be transplanted to Hazoori Ragi of Darbar Sahib, visually impaired Bhai Lakhwinder Singh.
He will be the first person to be hanged to death after Dhananjoy Chatterjee of Kolkata in August 2004 who was sentenced to death pertaining to case of raping and murdering Hetal Parekh in her house in Bhowanipore on March 5, 1990.
Deputy superintendent, Patiala jail, Rajan Kapoor said he has information about the execution orders but did not divulge details in reagrd to the preparations in jail for Rajoana’s hanging. especially owing to the fact that Punjab has no hangman currently in the state. The jail officials have taken up this issue with higher authorities. Advocate Navkiran Singh informed during a radio talk show on “Punjabi Radio USA” that death warrants issued by a court could only be interfered by a court.
Source: http://www.sikhsiyasat.net/2012/03/14/india-set-to-break-deathpenalty-mortarium-balwant-singh-rajoanas-black-warrants-issued/ [accessed on 15th March 2012]
More than 400 prisoners await the death sentence as justice is delayed
By Aman Sharma
PUBLISHED: 21:38 GMT, 9 March 2012 | UPDATED: 21:38 GMT, 9 March 2012
Ajmal Qasab and Mohammad Afzal are not the only ones on death row in India. There are 402 prisoners who await the noose. The latest report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) says there are 402 convicts, including 10 women, in Indian jails who face the death penalty.
The report, Prison Statistics India 2010, says there has been no execution in India since 2004, when rapist Dhananjay Chatterji was hanged in West Bengal. The delay in deciding on such executions over the last six years and the slow wheels of justice mean that the count of persons on death row has increased from 273 in 2005 to 402 in 2010. Delhi's Tihar Jail alone has 18 prisoners on the death row.Out of the 402 people facing capital punishment, 25 have their mercy petitions pending before the President.
It is, however, not clear how many have their mercy petitions pending before the state governors or whose cases are yet to attain finality before the Supreme Court (SC). Last week, the SC, which is monitoring the pending mercy petition cases, had asked the state governments to furnish a report on all such pleas pending with the governors.
The NCRB report says that out of the 402 death row convicts, the maximum are from Uttar Pradesh, whose jails have 131 such condemned prisoners. It is followed by Karnataka (60), Maharashtra (49), Bihar (31), West Bengal (20), Delhi (18), Tamil Nadu (16), Kerala (14) and Jharkhand (12). The NCRB report says that in 2010, 97 prisoners were awarded the death sentence, while 62 convicts had their capital punishment commuted to life.
PRISONER FACTS
* Out of the 3.68 lakh inmates in jails, 15,037 are women
* Nearly 65 per cent of all inmates are undertrials
* There are 1,663 children staying in jails because their mothers are either convicts or undertrials
* 19,925 inmates are graduates or post-graduates; Nearly 6,000 such inmates are lodged in UP jails
* Chhattisgarh has the most crowded jails with a 237 per cent occupancy, while Delhi's is 173 per cent
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2112877/More-400-prisoners-await-death-sentence-justice-delayed.html [accessed on 15th March 2012]
PUBLISHED: 21:38 GMT, 9 March 2012 | UPDATED: 21:38 GMT, 9 March 2012
Ajmal Qasab and Mohammad Afzal are not the only ones on death row in India. There are 402 prisoners who await the noose. The latest report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) says there are 402 convicts, including 10 women, in Indian jails who face the death penalty.
The report, Prison Statistics India 2010, says there has been no execution in India since 2004, when rapist Dhananjay Chatterji was hanged in West Bengal. The delay in deciding on such executions over the last six years and the slow wheels of justice mean that the count of persons on death row has increased from 273 in 2005 to 402 in 2010. Delhi's Tihar Jail alone has 18 prisoners on the death row.Out of the 402 people facing capital punishment, 25 have their mercy petitions pending before the President.
It is, however, not clear how many have their mercy petitions pending before the state governors or whose cases are yet to attain finality before the Supreme Court (SC). Last week, the SC, which is monitoring the pending mercy petition cases, had asked the state governments to furnish a report on all such pleas pending with the governors.
The NCRB report says that out of the 402 death row convicts, the maximum are from Uttar Pradesh, whose jails have 131 such condemned prisoners. It is followed by Karnataka (60), Maharashtra (49), Bihar (31), West Bengal (20), Delhi (18), Tamil Nadu (16), Kerala (14) and Jharkhand (12). The NCRB report says that in 2010, 97 prisoners were awarded the death sentence, while 62 convicts had their capital punishment commuted to life.
PRISONER FACTS
* Out of the 3.68 lakh inmates in jails, 15,037 are women
* Nearly 65 per cent of all inmates are undertrials
* There are 1,663 children staying in jails because their mothers are either convicts or undertrials
* 19,925 inmates are graduates or post-graduates; Nearly 6,000 such inmates are lodged in UP jails
* Chhattisgarh has the most crowded jails with a 237 per cent occupancy, while Delhi's is 173 per cent
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2112877/More-400-prisoners-await-death-sentence-justice-delayed.html [accessed on 15th March 2012]
Beant Singh assassination: Babbar Khalsa International activist to be hanged till death on March 31
Ajay Sura, TNN Mar 14, 2012, 02.45AM IST
CHANDIGARH: March 31 has been fixed for the hanging of Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) activist, Balwant Singh Rajoana, who is a convict in the assassination of former chief minister of Punjab, Beant Singh. Rajoana will be hanged till death inside the Central Jail, Patiala.
The warrant of death sentence of Rajoana, who is in solitary confinement in Patiala jail, was issued recently by additional district and sessions judge, Chandigarh, Shalini Nagpal. The orders will be sent to the Patiala jail for execution.
A special CBI court held inside Chandigarh's Burail jail had awarded death sentence to Rajoana and Jagtar Singh Hawara on August 1, 2007. Three other accused -- Lakhwinder Singh, Gurmeet Singh and Shamsher Singh -- were sentenced to life imprisonment for hatching the conspiracy to kill Beant Singh. The Punjab and Haryana high court had commuted the death sentence of Hawara to life sentence in October 2010. Rajoana had refused to appeal against the death sentence and it was also confirmed by the high court.
Even on October 1, 2010, Rajoana, who has also served as constable with the Punjab Police, had made a statement before Justice Mehtab Singh Gill of the high court that his hanging should be executed at the earliest possible.
Rajoana will be the first person to be hanged to death after Dhananjoy Chatterjee of Kolkata in August 2004. Dhananjoy was sentenced to death for raping and murdering Hetal Parekh in her house in Bhowanipore on March 5, 1990.
When contacted deputy superintendent, Patiala jail, Rajan Kapoor said he has heard about the execution orders but refused to give details about the preparations in jail for Rajoana's hanging.
Reacting to the development, general secretary, Lawyers for Human Rights International (LHRI), Navkiran Singh, said that it was Rajoana's wish. If he wishes to die that should be honoured. Singh, however, added that at the international level, India has very few number of cases of capital punishment and that should be maintained.
Source: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-03-14/india/31164855_1_patiala-jail-death-sentence-beant-singh [accessed on 15th March 2012]
CHANDIGARH: March 31 has been fixed for the hanging of Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) activist, Balwant Singh Rajoana, who is a convict in the assassination of former chief minister of Punjab, Beant Singh. Rajoana will be hanged till death inside the Central Jail, Patiala.
The warrant of death sentence of Rajoana, who is in solitary confinement in Patiala jail, was issued recently by additional district and sessions judge, Chandigarh, Shalini Nagpal. The orders will be sent to the Patiala jail for execution.
A special CBI court held inside Chandigarh's Burail jail had awarded death sentence to Rajoana and Jagtar Singh Hawara on August 1, 2007. Three other accused -- Lakhwinder Singh, Gurmeet Singh and Shamsher Singh -- were sentenced to life imprisonment for hatching the conspiracy to kill Beant Singh. The Punjab and Haryana high court had commuted the death sentence of Hawara to life sentence in October 2010. Rajoana had refused to appeal against the death sentence and it was also confirmed by the high court.
Even on October 1, 2010, Rajoana, who has also served as constable with the Punjab Police, had made a statement before Justice Mehtab Singh Gill of the high court that his hanging should be executed at the earliest possible.
Rajoana will be the first person to be hanged to death after Dhananjoy Chatterjee of Kolkata in August 2004. Dhananjoy was sentenced to death for raping and murdering Hetal Parekh in her house in Bhowanipore on March 5, 1990.
When contacted deputy superintendent, Patiala jail, Rajan Kapoor said he has heard about the execution orders but refused to give details about the preparations in jail for Rajoana's hanging.
Reacting to the development, general secretary, Lawyers for Human Rights International (LHRI), Navkiran Singh, said that it was Rajoana's wish. If he wishes to die that should be honoured. Singh, however, added that at the international level, India has very few number of cases of capital punishment and that should be maintained.
Source: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-03-14/india/31164855_1_patiala-jail-death-sentence-beant-singh [accessed on 15th March 2012]
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Jind honour killing: Father’s death sentence commuted
Sanjeev Verma, Hindustan Times
Chandigarh, February 25, 2012
Not finding the 2010 Jind honour killing case in the category of ‘gravest case of extreme culpabilty’, the Punjab and Haryana high court on Friday commuted the death sentence awarded by the trial court to the victim’s father, Ram Raji, to life imprisonment. However, the court upheld the life term
awarded to the girl’s mother, Kailash Devi.
Vikas, a 21-year-old Jat youth of Sangatpura village in Jind district, was in love with Ritu, a 19-year-old girl from the Brahmin family that resided in Krishna colony of the district. The couple wanted to marry but the girl’s parents killed both of them on the night of September 12, 2010.
Vikas’s father Ramesh had lodged an FIR at the police station in Jind on September 13, 2010.
Vikas’s body was found in a vacant plot in sector 8 of Jind town. After murdering Ritu, her parents cremated her at Brahmanwas village in the district without informing the police.
On August 10 last year, the Jind additional district and sessions judge convicted both the parents of the girl under Section 302 of the IPC (murder). The judge ordered that Ram Raji be hanged, while his wife Kailash Devi was sentenced to life imprisonment. The parents approached the high court against trial court’s orders.
While pronouncing the murder reference, the high court division bench headed by justice SS Saron held, “Even at the outset we may hasten to state that the trial court without drawing a balance sheet of aggravated and mitigating circumstances exercised the option of awarding death penalty to the accused appellant Ram Raji.”
The bench stated that in its view the case “that is entirely based upon circumstantial evidence does not call for extreme punishment of death sentence.”
The division bench added that it was a well-settled principle of law that only in the “gravest case of extreme culpability” the court should think in terms of imposing capital punishment of death. “The life imprisonment is a rule and the death sentence is an exception as per the current scheme of the penal law in India,” the bench said.
In its observations, the bench mentioned a similar honour killing case of Dalip Premnarayan Tiwari vs the state of Maharashtra of 2010 in which the apex court had reduced the death sentence awarded by the trial court and later confirmed by the high court to 25 years of actual imprisonment to three accused and 20 years to one of the accused.
Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Chandigarh/Jind-honour-killing-Father-s-death-sentence-commuted/Article1-816796.aspx [accessed on 28th February 2012]
Chandigarh, February 25, 2012
Not finding the 2010 Jind honour killing case in the category of ‘gravest case of extreme culpabilty’, the Punjab and Haryana high court on Friday commuted the death sentence awarded by the trial court to the victim’s father, Ram Raji, to life imprisonment. However, the court upheld the life term
awarded to the girl’s mother, Kailash Devi.
Vikas, a 21-year-old Jat youth of Sangatpura village in Jind district, was in love with Ritu, a 19-year-old girl from the Brahmin family that resided in Krishna colony of the district. The couple wanted to marry but the girl’s parents killed both of them on the night of September 12, 2010.
Vikas’s father Ramesh had lodged an FIR at the police station in Jind on September 13, 2010.
Vikas’s body was found in a vacant plot in sector 8 of Jind town. After murdering Ritu, her parents cremated her at Brahmanwas village in the district without informing the police.
On August 10 last year, the Jind additional district and sessions judge convicted both the parents of the girl under Section 302 of the IPC (murder). The judge ordered that Ram Raji be hanged, while his wife Kailash Devi was sentenced to life imprisonment. The parents approached the high court against trial court’s orders.
While pronouncing the murder reference, the high court division bench headed by justice SS Saron held, “Even at the outset we may hasten to state that the trial court without drawing a balance sheet of aggravated and mitigating circumstances exercised the option of awarding death penalty to the accused appellant Ram Raji.”
The bench stated that in its view the case “that is entirely based upon circumstantial evidence does not call for extreme punishment of death sentence.”
The division bench added that it was a well-settled principle of law that only in the “gravest case of extreme culpability” the court should think in terms of imposing capital punishment of death. “The life imprisonment is a rule and the death sentence is an exception as per the current scheme of the penal law in India,” the bench said.
In its observations, the bench mentioned a similar honour killing case of Dalip Premnarayan Tiwari vs the state of Maharashtra of 2010 in which the apex court had reduced the death sentence awarded by the trial court and later confirmed by the high court to 25 years of actual imprisonment to three accused and 20 years to one of the accused.
Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Chandigarh/Jind-honour-killing-Father-s-death-sentence-commuted/Article1-816796.aspx [accessed on 28th February 2012]
Government counters Bhullar bid to escape the death penalty
By Mail Today Reporter
Last updated at 8:25 PM on 25th February 2012
The Centre has submitted before the Supreme Court that death-row convict Devender Pal Singh Bhullar was wrongly relying on the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights to seek commutation of his death sentence to life imprisonment.
The Union home ministry told the apex court in an affidavit that the constituent countries in the United Nations were 'sovereign' and had the right to determine their own legal jurisprudence.
The affidavit, filed by joint secretary J.L. Chugh, says death sentence was 'constitutionally approved and permissible' in India and the covenant only talked of desirability of abolition of capital punishment.
Chugh said India was free under the covenant to make provisions for sentences for offences provided in the statutes.
Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights refers to the desirability of the abolition of the death penalty by member nations.
The second optional protocol of the convention, however, mandates abolition of death sentence. India has not signed the second protocol.
On Bhullar citing the covenant, the Centre said he was trying to divert the attention and his argument has no merit in the case.
'Abolition of death penalty in India is a different issue which has no connection to the issue of disposal of the mercy petition under the constitutional scheme,' the Centre said.
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2106456/Government-counters-Bhullar-bid-escape-death-penalty.html?ito=feeds-newsxml [accessed on 28th Feb 2012]
Monday, February 27, 2012
SC rules out death penalty for rape & murder accused
Published: Monday, Feb 27, 2012, 9:45 IST
By Rakesh Bhatnagar | Place: New Delhi | Agency: DNA
Putting to rest the controversy over whether a person charged with rape and murdering his victim should be sentenced to the extreme penalty of death, the Supreme Court has ruled that in such a rarest of rare case an accused can’t be given the capital sentence but life term till the end of his life.
This ruling has given a new thrust to the raging debate on compulsorily giving the extreme sentence of death to a rapist. But conscious of the consequences of such a legislation that could lead to serious ramifications, it is argued that the victim couldlose the life too after having suffered the worst kind of brutality.
In a recent verdict, the top court has set aside a judgment by the Allahabad high court that upheld the sentence of death to one Amit, a teenager who raped and murdered a 13-year-old school going girl seven years ago.
“In such cases of rape followed by murder by a young man, instead of death sentence a life imprisonment should be awarded with a direction that life sentence imposed will extend to the full life of the appellant (accused) but subject to any remission or commutation at the instance of the government for good and sufficient reasons,” the court added.
A trial court and the HC had observed that the offence committed by Amit squarely fell in the ‘rarest of rare’ category, thus the appropriate sentence would be death.
The court expressed the hope that the accused would be reformed and turn out to be a better citizen in future. They said he had never committed such an offence in the past and a chance must be given to him to become a good citizen.
In 2008, the top court had however taken into account the increasing number of rape and murder cases as it handed down death sentence to a resident of Pune for raping and killing a girl living in his neighbourhood.
“A large number of cases in recent times coming before this court involving rape and murder of young girls, is a matter of concern,” judges had added.
They also rejected the plea for mercy made by the accused and said, “Undue sympathy to impose inadequate sentence would do more harm to the justice system to undermine the public confidence in the efficacy of law.”
By Rakesh Bhatnagar | Place: New Delhi | Agency: DNA
Putting to rest the controversy over whether a person charged with rape and murdering his victim should be sentenced to the extreme penalty of death, the Supreme Court has ruled that in such a rarest of rare case an accused can’t be given the capital sentence but life term till the end of his life.
This ruling has given a new thrust to the raging debate on compulsorily giving the extreme sentence of death to a rapist. But conscious of the consequences of such a legislation that could lead to serious ramifications, it is argued that the victim couldlose the life too after having suffered the worst kind of brutality.
In a recent verdict, the top court has set aside a judgment by the Allahabad high court that upheld the sentence of death to one Amit, a teenager who raped and murdered a 13-year-old school going girl seven years ago.
“In such cases of rape followed by murder by a young man, instead of death sentence a life imprisonment should be awarded with a direction that life sentence imposed will extend to the full life of the appellant (accused) but subject to any remission or commutation at the instance of the government for good and sufficient reasons,” the court added.
A trial court and the HC had observed that the offence committed by Amit squarely fell in the ‘rarest of rare’ category, thus the appropriate sentence would be death.
The court expressed the hope that the accused would be reformed and turn out to be a better citizen in future. They said he had never committed such an offence in the past and a chance must be given to him to become a good citizen.
In 2008, the top court had however taken into account the increasing number of rape and murder cases as it handed down death sentence to a resident of Pune for raping and killing a girl living in his neighbourhood.
“A large number of cases in recent times coming before this court involving rape and murder of young girls, is a matter of concern,” judges had added.
They also rejected the plea for mercy made by the accused and said, “Undue sympathy to impose inadequate sentence would do more harm to the justice system to undermine the public confidence in the efficacy of law.”
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Say NO to death for drugs-The Hindu -Op-ED
February 23, 2012
Handing down capital punishment for an offence that does not take life is draconian and violates all international human rights standards.
When Paramjit Singh was sentenced to death for drug trafficking last month, he joined two other accused narcotics offenders on India's death row (despite reports that it was “a first” and “a landmark judgment”).
The jubilatory tone in some media was disappointing and, in some respects, it was surprising that the case didn't generate more controversy. The death penalty for drugs has been a subject matter of intense debate — centring on the question of whether the state can take life for an offence that does not involve the taking of life. The opinion of most international experts (as well as the overwhelming majority of states) is clear that drug offences do not warrant death sentences.
India has a long history of opium and cannabis use, especially in medicinal, spiritual and social contexts. Serving opium is an age-old tradition in many parts of the country that marks respect for guests. Yet, this social propriety turned into legal impropriety with the enactment of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS) in 1985, in order to comply with international agreements. The NDPS Act prohibits cultivation, production, manufacture, possession, sale, purchase, transport, import, export, use and consumption of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, except for medical and scientific reasons, under license.
In 1989, barely four years after its introduction, the NDPS Act underwent amendments to incorporate harsher provisions, including mandatory death penalty upon subsequent conviction, if the quantity of contraband exceeds the threshold under Section 31A of the Act. The offender's circumstances — whether young or old, sick or mentally infirm, socially and economically disadvantaged or acting under duress or pressure — were irrelevant in sentencing. The death sentence is applied uniformly, irrespective of whether the convicted person is a carrier, an intermediary, organiser or lead player in the drug trade.
That this was contrary to the Supreme Court's ruling in 1983 in Mithu where mandatory death penalty was held to be unconstitutional, did not cut ice with lawmakers. The moral panic surrounding drugs forestalled any criticism of this draconian provision.
A constitutional challenge in 1998 was disallowed, as no one had been sentenced to death for a drug crime at the time. Ten years later, two men were sentenced to death in separate cases for possession of charas or cannabis resin. Subsequently, the Bombay High Court read in judicial discretion and empowered the sentencing Court to award a sentence other than death.
While the death penalty is not prohibited in international law, international human rights authorities have clarified certain conditions associated with its application. For example, it should not be imposed on juveniles or pregnant women. These standards also stipulate that only certain offences — or ‘most serious crimes' — should be eligible for capital punishment, an expression that has been understood to mean crimes that involve the intentional taking of life.
Drug offences do not involve killing or taking of life. Though serious, drug dependence can be addressed with counselling, treatment and aftercare. The twelve drugs that attract capital punishment under the NDPS Act are not similar in their addictive potential, deleterious effects or therapeutic value. Two of these drugs — Morphine and Codeine — are included in the National List of Essential Medicines, 2011 for their analgesic properties. Cannabis, which is also part of the list, neither causes death nor results in serious physical or psychological impairment.
Internationally denounced
The United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) has held that drug trafficking is not the “most serious crime” under international law. In 1997, the UNHRC asked India to “limit the number of offences carrying the death penalty to the most serious crimes, with a view to its ultimate abolition”. Significantly, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the agency that oversees drug control measures globally has denounced capital punishment as a means to contain illicit trafficking and called upon Member States to abolish the death penalty for drug-related offences.
India has consistently ignored these opinions.
In the seminal case of Bachan Singh in 1980, the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 for murder — an act that puts an end to life. It is on the principle of retributive justice that the court regarded death penalty to be constitutional, with a further qualifier that it can only be imposed in the “rarest of rare” case. The badge of constitutional validity does not mean that the legislature can prescribe this extreme punishment indiscriminately and ignore international legal and human rights standards.
Anti-narcotics campaigns have often tended to label drug offences as being worse than homicide. Such observations are mere rhetoric and not backed by scientific evidence. They stem from the much hyped “war on drugs”, whose failure has been documented in many studies, including the findings of the Global Commission on Drug Policy last year. Exterminating drug offenders does not address the problem of illicit drugs. Iran executes hundreds of drug traffickers every year and yet the country has one of the most severe opiate addiction problems in the world.
In any event, it is notoriously challenging to measure deterrence with something as varied and pervasive as drugs. Countries with some of the strictest drug laws in the world — that is, the United States, Russia and Iran — also have some of the highest rates of problematic use and drug related harms. This is not to say that some strict countries do not also have low rates of drug use. It is only to say that the death penalty is not automatically a deterrent. In fact, when one compares jurisdictions all over the world, it appears the death penalty and drug use do not have much to do with each other.
In the meantime, the fate of the three men sentenced to death for NDPS offences hangs in balance. In each of their cases, capital punishment was triggered by the quantity of drugs found, the calculation of which is subject to error and controversy vis-à-vis the actual content, extent of impurities and presence of neutral materials in the narcotic drug or psychotropic substance.
Parliament is presently reviewing amendments to the NDPS Act. Will the rhetoric of ‘tough on drugs' prevail once again? Or will India be able to act as a mature and responsible society which limits the offences for which the State can execute men? It is an acid test for drug policy reformers as well as anti-death penalty advocates, both of whom would like to see India move in the latter direction.
(Anand Grover is a senior advocate and director of the Lawyers Collective, based in New Delhi; Rick Lines is the executive director of Harm Reduction International, based in London. E-mails: anandgrover@gmail.com, rick.lines@ihra.net)
Handing down capital punishment for an offence that does not take life is draconian and violates all international human rights standards.
When Paramjit Singh was sentenced to death for drug trafficking last month, he joined two other accused narcotics offenders on India's death row (despite reports that it was “a first” and “a landmark judgment”).
The jubilatory tone in some media was disappointing and, in some respects, it was surprising that the case didn't generate more controversy. The death penalty for drugs has been a subject matter of intense debate — centring on the question of whether the state can take life for an offence that does not involve the taking of life. The opinion of most international experts (as well as the overwhelming majority of states) is clear that drug offences do not warrant death sentences.
India has a long history of opium and cannabis use, especially in medicinal, spiritual and social contexts. Serving opium is an age-old tradition in many parts of the country that marks respect for guests. Yet, this social propriety turned into legal impropriety with the enactment of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS) in 1985, in order to comply with international agreements. The NDPS Act prohibits cultivation, production, manufacture, possession, sale, purchase, transport, import, export, use and consumption of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, except for medical and scientific reasons, under license.
In 1989, barely four years after its introduction, the NDPS Act underwent amendments to incorporate harsher provisions, including mandatory death penalty upon subsequent conviction, if the quantity of contraband exceeds the threshold under Section 31A of the Act. The offender's circumstances — whether young or old, sick or mentally infirm, socially and economically disadvantaged or acting under duress or pressure — were irrelevant in sentencing. The death sentence is applied uniformly, irrespective of whether the convicted person is a carrier, an intermediary, organiser or lead player in the drug trade.
That this was contrary to the Supreme Court's ruling in 1983 in Mithu where mandatory death penalty was held to be unconstitutional, did not cut ice with lawmakers. The moral panic surrounding drugs forestalled any criticism of this draconian provision.
A constitutional challenge in 1998 was disallowed, as no one had been sentenced to death for a drug crime at the time. Ten years later, two men were sentenced to death in separate cases for possession of charas or cannabis resin. Subsequently, the Bombay High Court read in judicial discretion and empowered the sentencing Court to award a sentence other than death.
While the death penalty is not prohibited in international law, international human rights authorities have clarified certain conditions associated with its application. For example, it should not be imposed on juveniles or pregnant women. These standards also stipulate that only certain offences — or ‘most serious crimes' — should be eligible for capital punishment, an expression that has been understood to mean crimes that involve the intentional taking of life.
Drug offences do not involve killing or taking of life. Though serious, drug dependence can be addressed with counselling, treatment and aftercare. The twelve drugs that attract capital punishment under the NDPS Act are not similar in their addictive potential, deleterious effects or therapeutic value. Two of these drugs — Morphine and Codeine — are included in the National List of Essential Medicines, 2011 for their analgesic properties. Cannabis, which is also part of the list, neither causes death nor results in serious physical or psychological impairment.
Internationally denounced
The United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) has held that drug trafficking is not the “most serious crime” under international law. In 1997, the UNHRC asked India to “limit the number of offences carrying the death penalty to the most serious crimes, with a view to its ultimate abolition”. Significantly, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the agency that oversees drug control measures globally has denounced capital punishment as a means to contain illicit trafficking and called upon Member States to abolish the death penalty for drug-related offences.
India has consistently ignored these opinions.
In the seminal case of Bachan Singh in 1980, the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 for murder — an act that puts an end to life. It is on the principle of retributive justice that the court regarded death penalty to be constitutional, with a further qualifier that it can only be imposed in the “rarest of rare” case. The badge of constitutional validity does not mean that the legislature can prescribe this extreme punishment indiscriminately and ignore international legal and human rights standards.
Anti-narcotics campaigns have often tended to label drug offences as being worse than homicide. Such observations are mere rhetoric and not backed by scientific evidence. They stem from the much hyped “war on drugs”, whose failure has been documented in many studies, including the findings of the Global Commission on Drug Policy last year. Exterminating drug offenders does not address the problem of illicit drugs. Iran executes hundreds of drug traffickers every year and yet the country has one of the most severe opiate addiction problems in the world.
In any event, it is notoriously challenging to measure deterrence with something as varied and pervasive as drugs. Countries with some of the strictest drug laws in the world — that is, the United States, Russia and Iran — also have some of the highest rates of problematic use and drug related harms. This is not to say that some strict countries do not also have low rates of drug use. It is only to say that the death penalty is not automatically a deterrent. In fact, when one compares jurisdictions all over the world, it appears the death penalty and drug use do not have much to do with each other.
In the meantime, the fate of the three men sentenced to death for NDPS offences hangs in balance. In each of their cases, capital punishment was triggered by the quantity of drugs found, the calculation of which is subject to error and controversy vis-à-vis the actual content, extent of impurities and presence of neutral materials in the narcotic drug or psychotropic substance.
Parliament is presently reviewing amendments to the NDPS Act. Will the rhetoric of ‘tough on drugs' prevail once again? Or will India be able to act as a mature and responsible society which limits the offences for which the State can execute men? It is an acid test for drug policy reformers as well as anti-death penalty advocates, both of whom would like to see India move in the latter direction.
(Anand Grover is a senior advocate and director of the Lawyers Collective, based in New Delhi; Rick Lines is the executive director of Harm Reduction International, based in London. E-mails: anandgrover@gmail.com, rick.lines@ihra.net)
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