Abolish Death Penalty India: 'An eye for an eye' is not practiced in India: Kerala High Court grants release to death row inmate

Wednesday, June 25, 2025

'An eye for an eye' is not practiced in India: Kerala High Court grants release to death row inmate

The Court ruled that even in cases where statutes prohibit parole for death row inmates, High Courts may use their authority under Article 226 of the Constitution to protect fundamental human rights.

A death row inmate was recently granted escort parole by the Kerala High Court to visit his ill 93-year-old mother. According to the High Court's ruling, the convicted individual is one of 14 individuals who were given the death punishment by a Sessions Court last year for the killing of lawyer and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ranjith Sreenivasan. According to reports, all 14 were affiliated with the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) and the outlawed Popular Front of India (PFI). The High Court is still considering their appeals against their conviction and imprisonment.

Despite the fact that parole is forbidden for inmates who have received death sentences under the Kerala Prisons and Correction Services (Management) Act and the Kerala Prisons and Correction Services (Management) Rules, Justice PV Kunhikrishnan issued the decision granting parole. The Court ruled that even in cases where parole for condemned inmates is prohibited by statute, High Courts may use their authority under Article 226 of the Indian Constitution to protect fundamental human rights.

Justice PV Kunhikrishnan

The Court emphasized that India does not practice "an eye for an eye" or other forms of retributive retribution. However, a court of law cannot adopt an inhumane stance similar to that of the prisoner who abandoned the victim's family. Retributive punishment, such as "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," is not practiced in India. Our nation is renowned for upholding justice while demonstrating empathy, humanity, and compassion. The constitutional court has an obligation to ensure that a prisoner's basic rights and requirements are upheld until the end of the sentence, the court declared.

Additionally, it noted that as the Indian legal system is not based on retributive punishment, courts must exercise their discretion when it comes to showing compassion. "Justice is not justice without the gentle touch of humanity, empathy, and compassion. However, the Court stated that humanity, empathy, and compassion are questions of judicial discretion that must be applied in light of each case's unique facts and circumstances. The constitutional court has an obligation to ensure that a prisoner's basic rights and needs are upheld until the end of the term.

The convict's wife submitted the petition, contesting the prison administration's repeated denial of their requests for emergency parole. In addition to offering to pay for the escort, the petitioner had provided medical data attesting to the convict's mother's precarious health. Prison officials, however, denied the petitions, citing Rule 339(2) of the Rules and Section 42 of the Kerala Prisons and Correctional Services (Management) Act, 2010 as reasons for not allowing escort visits or emergency parole for inmates awaiting execution.

The petitioner argued that the High Court might use its authority under Article 226 on humanitarian grounds and grant her husband parole to visit his mother, who is entirely bedridden, even if the legislation did not allow parole in such circumstances. Although the convict's offense was serious and his acts had caused the victim's family much anguish, the court pointed out that the legal system couldn't take a strictly punitive stance.

"When the prisoner, who is a condemned prisoner waiting for death sentence submit before this Court that he want to see his mother, who is in a sinking stage, this Court cannot shut its eye, even though he was inhuman to the deceased and his relatives, when he committed the murder, which is found as true by the trial court," the Court stated in its ruling. Retributive punishment, such as "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," is not practiced in India.

After obtaining a certified copy of its ruling, the Court decided it was appropriate to use its extraordinary power under Article 226 of the Constitution and mandated that the convicted individual be placed on escort parole within three days.

The Court further mandated that the convicted individual be permitted to spend a minimum of six hours with his mother while being closely monitored by the police, with the District Police Chief of Thiruvananthapuram City overseeing the arrangements.

Advocates KS Madhusoodanan, MM Vinod Kumar, PK Rakesh Kumar, KS Mizver, MJ Kirankumar, and Shaiq Rasal M. represented the petitioner.

Source: https://lawread.in/an-eye-for-an-eye-is-not-practiced-in-india-kerala-high-court-grants-release-to-death-row-inmate

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The Death Penalty Scenario in India

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reena Mary George

Abolish Death Penalty India

Wednesday, June 25, 2025

'An eye for an eye' is not practiced in India: Kerala High Court grants release to death row inmate

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