Supreme Court India issues notice to Centre on death penalty in SC/ST cases

10 MAY 2019 Last Updated at 4:18 PM | SOURCE: IANS

The Supreme Court on Friday issued a notice to the Centre on a plea challenging the validity of a section which prescribes for mandatory death sentence in a case where an innocent member of a Scheduled Caste (SC) or a Scheduled Tribe (ST) is convicted and is executed as a consequence of false and fabricated evidence given by the accused. The action of a bench headed by Justice S.A. Bobde came on a public interest litigation (PIL) challenging the mandatory death penalty under section 3(2)(i) of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The plea was filed by advocate Rishi Malhotra. The advocate told the court that the provision is "manifestly arbitrary, disproportionate, excessive, unreasonable, unjust, unfair, harsh, unusual and cruel".

Under Section 3(2)(i) of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, whoever, not being a member of SC/ST, gives or fabricates false evidence intending thereby to cause any member of SC/ST to be convicted of an offence which is capital by the law for the time being in force shall be punished with imprisonment for life, and with fine, and if an innocent member of SC/ST is convicted and executed in consequence of such false or fabricated evidence, the person who gives or fabricates such false evidence, shall be punished with death.

Rishi Malhotra

The petitioner requested the court to strike down the provision with regard to mandatory death penalty as prescribed under Section 3(2)(i) of The Scheduled Castes & The Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989. The petitioner said the said law is ultra vires of the Constitution and against the fundamental tenets of Constitutional laws. Citing various other sections which were quashed or amended by the court earlier, the advocate said: "As and when an occasion had arisen where the mandatory imposition of death penalty is called in question in different statutes, either this court by exercising its Constitutional powers of judicial review has struck down those provisions by holding it to be unconstitutional and void or the legislature itself has amended those provisions by removing the mandatory imposition of death penalty."

He mentioned Section 27(3) of the Arms Act which was declared void. He also told the court that the second part of Section 194 IPC is almost akin to Section 3(2)(i) of the Act but with a major difference in sentencing in as much as Section 194 IPC provides for an option of awarding death sentence or sentence of imprisonment for life. Similarly, Section 31A (1)(b) of the NDPS Act which initially provided for mandatory death sentence was rightly amended in 2014 by the legislature itself and further provided for an option of awarding death sentence or any other imprisonment as specified in Section 31 of the Act. Furthermore, if the mandatory death sentences are allowed to continue in the statute books, it would defeat the existence of very important provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure namely 235(2) Cr.P.C. as well as Section 354 (3) Cr.P.C. both of which provide for hearing of an accused on the quantum of sentence, the advocate added.

Source: https://www.outlookindia.com/newsscroll/sc-issues-notice-to-centre-on-death-penalty-in-scst-cases/1531941 (accessed on 30 May 2019)

To fast-track sex assault probe, states to get forensic kits

TNN | Apr 22, 2019, 03.28 AM IST

NEW DELHI: The women safety division of the ministry of home affairs has set its focus on expediting investigations in a time-bound manner. According to the latest updates available with MHA, Madhya Pradesh is showing the way especially in particularly heinous cases securing the death sentence in 21 rape/POCSO Act cases since Criminal Law (Amendment) Act came into force in 2018. As per the investigation tracking system for sexual offences (ITSSO) launched on February 19, the MHA cites Haryana, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh as the leading states/UTs in terms of completion of investigations within two months. MHA set up ITSSO, an online mechanism to monitor and track investigation in sexual assault cases in accordance with the 2018 amendment to the law. 

It is an analytical tool based on CCTNS data available right from the police station to national level. Meanwhile, 2,575 officers have been trained by Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) and National Institute of Criminology and Forensic Sciences in collection, handling and transportation of forensic evidence, including trace elements like a single strand of hair, dead skin cells, blood etc. 

BPR&D has also procured 3,120 Sexual Assault Evidence Collection (SAEC) Kits for distribution to states/ UTs as orientation kit as part of training. The handling of evidence is based on the notified guidelines for collection of forensic evidence in sexual assault cases and standard composition in a sexual assault forensic kit. The latest update on the 'Emergency Response Support System (ERSS)' with a single emergency number (112) shows that it has been operationalised in 20 states and union territories. These include Andaman Islands, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Kerala, Lakshadweep, Nagaland, Puducherry, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttarakhand & Uttar Pradesh, and Mumbai city. From the Nirbhaya Fund, Rs 292.89 crore has been utilised so far for this project.

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/mha-sends-kits-for-sexual-assault-probe-to-states/articleshowprint/68982818.cms (accessed on 30 May 2019)

SC Finally Corrects The Error: Acquits Six Persons Sentenced To Death By A 2009 Judgment (Maharashtra)

BY: LIVELAW NEWS NETWORK5 March 2019 8:51 AM 

The Supreme Court on Monday acquitted three persons who were sentenced to death by it in 2009, and also three others whose death penalty was confirmed by it. The bench comprising Justice AK Sikri, Justice S. Abdul Nazeer and Justice MR Shah, also ordered the State of Maharashtra to pay Rupees 5 Lakh as damages to each of them Ankush Maruti Shinde, Rajya Appa Shinde, Ambadas Laxman Shinde, Raju Mhasu Shinde, Bapu Appa Shinde and Surya alias Suresh were accused of committing five murders and raping a lady (who survived) and a child of 15 years of age (who died). The Trial Court convicted all of them and sentenced them to death.

In the appeals filed by them, the Bombay High Court set aside death penalty awarded to three of them and instead sentenced them to life imprisonment. While for the remaining three, the death sentence was confirmed.

Left to Right: Justice Sikri, Justice Nazeer, Justice Shah

The Supreme Court bench comprising of Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice Mukundakam Sharma, in 2009, not only dismissed the appeals filed by the three whose death sentence was confirmed by the High court, but also allowed State's appeal and sentenced the other three to death sentence. The Supreme Court had found the crime to be cruel and diabolic. It had observed that the collective conscience of the community was shocked; the victims were of a tender age and defenseless; the victims had no animosity towards the accused and the attack against them was unprovoked. Considering these factors awarded the death penalty to all the accused. 

In February 2014, a bench of Justices A.K. Patnaik and Ibrahim Kalifulla admitted the review petitions filed by all the death convicts, accepting the arguments of Senior Advocate Soli Sorabjee that it was decided relying on a wrong precedent- Ravji alias Ram Chandra v. State of Rajasthan [(1996) 2 SCC 175]. It was argued that Ravji's case and the six subsequent cases in which Ravji was followed were decided per incuriam, as the law laid down therein is contrary to the law laid by the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in Bachan Singh. In October 2018, a three Judge Bench headed by Justice Kurian Joseph had recalled the 2009 Judgment and the Appeals were restored. The Bench also gave permission for Accused number 3,5 and 6 for filing appeals.

Source: https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/sc-acquits-death-row-convicts-143331 (Accessed 05 March 2019)

Child abuse: More death penalty, longer jail terms

Written by Shalini Nair |New Delhi |Updated: December 29, 2018 6:44:58 am

WCD Ministry officials said that the amendment was necessary as POCSO, unlike the Indian Penal Code (IPC), is a gender-neutral law that protects both boys and girls under the age of 18.

The Union Cabinet Friday approved amendments to the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, to include the death penalty in all cases of aggravated penetrative sexual assault against children, both boys and girls, below the age of 18. This covers 21 categories of sexual crimes against children. The amendments also extend the punishment for aggravated penetrative sexual assault from a minimum of 10 years to a minimum of 20 years, up to a maximum of life imprisonment and even the death penalty under Section 6 of POCSO Act. Its existing definition covers 20 categories of penetrative sexual crimes against children and the Cabinet also approved adding sexual assault of children who are victims of calamities or natural disasters, taking it up to 21 categories.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development, which moved the Cabinet note, said: “In the wake of gruesome and heart-wrenching incidents, there has been a growing demand from society to arrest the disturbing trend by introducing stringent punishment including the death penalty for rape cases.”

EXPLAINED

POCSO now gender neutral, convictions keyThe amendments come months after the Cabinet approved the death penalty for those convicted of raping girls below the age of 12. They widen the range of cases of sexual assault against boys and girls under 18 that are now punishable by death. The government says a more stringent POCSO will act as a deterrent. But data show that less than 3% of all POCSO cases end in convictions and experts warn against the chilling effect the death penalty may have on reporting the crime. Systemic changes in law enforcement and prosecution hold the key to tackling child sexual abuse.

WCD Ministry officials said that the amendment was necessary as POCSO, unlike the Indian Penal Code (IPC), is a gender-neutral law that protects both boys and girls under the age of 18. “The earlier amendment by the Home Ministry allowed the death penalty only in cases of sexual assault of girls below 12 years. Our amendment, if approved by Parliament, will not only allow a maximum of the death penalty in case of sexual assault of boy victims under 12 years but also in all cases where a child under 18 years is sexually assaulted in an aggravated manner,” said a senior WCD official. In its cabinet note, the ministry has cited reported rapes of young girls in the aftermath of Kedarnath floods and that children constitute 50-60% of victims of calamities to make a case for including rapes in course of natural calamities as the 21st category. Section 4 of POCSO on ‘Penetrative sexual assault’ also has been amended to extend the punishment from the existing seven years to ten years if the child is 16-17 years old and to a minimum of 20 years if the child is below the age of 16. The maximum sentence in these cases remains life imprisonment.

The definition of ‘sexual assault’ in POCSO has been amended to include administering hormones to children expedite their sexual maturity for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. Moreover, punitive measures have been made more stringent in cases where children are used for pornography as well as for storing such content. In a statement after the Cabinet decision, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad it was unfortunate that some minors are administered hormones to make them appear adult. He said, “This is a wholesome initiative whereby the entire POCSO architecture is not only strengthened but also enlarged so that artificial medicines or hormones could not be abused to kill the childliness of a child.” The 21 categories under aggravated penetrative sexual assault, in addition to the death penalty for sexually assaulting children below the age of 12, cover child victims under the age of 18 years, who have been subject to penetrative sexual assault by a police officer or a member of the armed forces or security forces, by a public servant, a relative, the staff of a jail or remand home or protection home, staff of a hospital, educational institution, or religious institution among others.

It also includes the gangrape of a child or use of deadly weapons during penetrative sexual assault, a sexual assault that incapacitates the child physically or mentally, makes a girl child pregnant, inflicts the child with HIV or any life-threatening disease. The maximum punishment of death will also be applicable when sexual assault victims are children with mental or physical disabilities, in cases of repeat offenders, rape and attempt to murder, and rape during communal violence.

Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/india/pocso-child-abuse-sexual-harassment-cabinet-meeting-5514445/ (Accessed 29 December 2018)

Those on Death Row are Most Vulnerable and Marginalized (India)

Saurav Datta, 11 Dec 2018

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.

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. The right to fair trial – one of the most basic and statutory of constitutional guarantees, and the right against custodial torture and self-incrimination are routinely violated in death penalty cases, and the exclusion from the public good of fair trial rights takes place across different stages of the legal process in capital cases, and a complex set of institutional factors contribute to such exclusion. These are the findings of the India Exclusion Report 2017-18 which was recently released by the Centre for Equity Studies, a research and advocacy organisation based in Delhi.

Rampant Torture

Over 80 per cent of the convicts admitted to having suffered custodial torture. Out of 22 who were convicted and sentenced to death for terror offences, 16 revealed they had been tortured under custody. Out of the 92 who said they had confessed in police custody (and these confessions were used to convict them despite the statutory prohibition under the Evidence Act), 72, i.e., 78.3 per cent admitted to making confessions due to torture. The torture methods mirrored the torture in the notorious Guantanamo Bay - forcible anal penetration, waterboarding, sleep deprivation, tying one to a table while a venomous snake was left inside the room, electric shocks to private parts, severe beating, and the like.

False Pretexts, Abysmal Legal Representation

Many prisoners alleged malicious prosecution and false implication, Akira Begum (location not disclosed to protect privacy) said, "I left my sleeping son at home because the police called me to sign certain documents. I never got to go home after that.” Vatsal Singh narrated how he was called for questioning on an alleged bank robbery charge, and subsequently charged with murdering six members of a family. Atmaram, a death row convict from Maharashtra, narrated his woeful plight. After he was arrested on a murder charge, his pregnant wife and his children were picked up (without any legally valid reason) and locked up in a police station for four days and weren't allowed to communicate with anyone. The experience turned out to be so traumatic that his wife underwent an abortion immediately after being released.

In other cases, prison officials and personnel demand sexual favours from the wives of those condemned to death, in order to grant them their right to a weekly mulaqat (visit). Of the 191 prisoners who shared information regarding access to a lawyer at the time of interrogation, 185 (97 per cent) said they were not allowed to consult a lawyer. Of these 185, 82.6 per cent who spoke about their experience in custody said they had been subjected to torture. As for the quality of legal representation, 132 (36.6 per cent) were represented by legal aid lawyers at the trial court, while 227 (70.6 per cent) had access to a private lawyer. At the Supreme Court stage, this dropped to 71.4 per cent and 29.9 per cent respectively, thus showing how tough it is to access quality legal representation. In the study, even though there were some positive opinions on lawyers, they were far outnumbered by narratives of the lawyers’ lack of interaction with prisoners and their families, repeated demands for exorbitant sums of money and dereliction of duties by defence lawyers.

Exclusion of Marginalised Groups

Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of people on death row - 79 followed by Bihar (53), Karnataka (45), and Delhi (30). 279 prisoners (76 per cent) sentenced to death hail from backward classes and religious minorities. While the proportion of Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled Tribes amongst all sentenced to death was 24.5 per cent, it was significantly higher in Maharashtra (50 per cent), Karnataka (36.4 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (36 per cent), Bihar (31.4 per cent) and Jharkhand (30.8 per cent) amongst states with 10 or more prisoners on death row. Religious minorities comprised a disproportionate share of prisoners sentenced to death in Gujarat (79 per cent), Kerala (60 per cent) and Karnataka (31.8 per cent). On disaggregating the data on economic vulnerability for each social profile category, it was observed that 85.4 per cent of prisoners who were SC/STs were also economically vulnerable. This was in contrast to 64.4 per cent for those belonging to the general category.

Ending the Collective Silence

The report, as it explicitly clarified, doesn't intend to demand the abolition of capital punishment, but with the aid of data- 373 death row prisoners in 62 prisons of 29 Indian states, tried to address the excruciating agony of the sheer uncertainty which "condemned convicts" are forced to face day in day out. Accompanied with this is the fact that 41 non-homicide offences in all the central legislations carry the death penalty as the maximum punishment, while there are only 13 homicide-related offences that do so.  This is in stark contrast to the United States, where its apex court ruled that "awarding" death penalty in non-homicide cases (such as rape) is illegal and unconstitutional. But India's lawmakers, especially after the December 2012 Delhi gangrape case, have demonstrated a predilection of baying for the blood of those who they feel shake "the collective conscience of society".

The researchers recount how difficult it was to gather data and how they had to go take the RTI (Right to Information) Act route, approaching the National Legal Services Authority, and the prison authorities to even get to know the total number of people on death row. Maharashtra straightaway refused interview access to death row convicts with the argument that all were terror-offence convicts and voicing their opinions could jeopardise national security. This gut-wrenching report, which seeks to narrate and portray the plight of death row convicts "in the hope that this will end our collective silence" should nudge the establishment and the judiciary. But hopes remain dim.

Source: https://www.newsclick.in/those-death-row-are-most-vulnerable-and-marginalised  (Accessed 25 December 2018)

India votes against UNGA draft resolution on use of death penalty

Published: 14th November 2018 11:57 AM 

The draft resolution, taken up in the Third Committee of the General Assembly Tuesday, was approved with a recorded vote of 123 in favour, 36 against and 30 abstentions.

By PTI

UNITED NATIONS: India has voted against a UN General Assembly 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.

United Nations General Assembly

The draft resolution, taken up in the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian, Cultural) of the General Assembly Tuesday, was approved with a recorded vote of 123 in favour, 36 against and 30 abstentions. India was among the countries that voted against the resolution, which would have the Assembly call on all States to respect international standards on the rights of those facing death penalty and ensure that it is not applied on the basis of discriminatory laws or as a result of discriminatory or arbitrary application of the law.

First Secretary in India's Permanent Mission to the UN Paulomi Tripathi, giving the country's explanation of vote, said the resolution sought to promote a moratorium on executions with the aim of abolishing death penalty. "My delegation has voted against the resolution as a whole, as it goes against statutory law in India," she said. "In India, the death penalty is exercised in 'rarest of rare' cases, where the crime committed is so heinous that it shocks the conscience of the society. Indian law provides for all requisite procedural safeguards, including the right to a fair trial by an independent Court, presumption of innocence, the minimum guarantees for defence, and the right to review by a higher court," she said.

India's Permanent Mission to the UN Paulomi Tripathi (2018)

The draft resolution's passage followed an intense debate and Singapore introduced an amendment on behalf of 34 countries that reaffirmed the countries' sovereign right to develop their own legal system. The Committee then approved this amendment by a recorded vote of 96 in favour to 73 against, with 14 abstentions. India voted in favour of this amendment. By its terms, the Assembly would reaffirm the sovereign right of all countries to develop their own legal systems, including determining appropriate legal penalties, in accordance with their international law obligations.

Tripathi said every State has the sovereign right to determine its own legal system and appropriate legal penalties and it was in this context that India voted in favour of the amendment but has voted against the resolution as a whole. Singapore's delegate decried the draft resolution's "one-size-fits-all" approach to a delicate question, which seeks to impose a particular vision of the world onto others.

The representative of Singapore said the amendment aimed to ensure respect for the diversity of views. The amendment is simple and neutral and it does not take a position on the substance of the draft resolution, nor make judgments about State policies, Singapore said. Tripathi said the Indian laws have specific provisions for commutation of death penalty in the case of pregnant women and has rulings that prohibited executions of persons with mental or intellectual disabilities, while juvenile offenders cannot be sentenced to death under any circumstances. Death sentences in India must also be confirmed by a superior court and an accused has the right to appeal to a High Court or the Supreme Court, which has adopted guidelines on clemency and the treatment of death row prisoners, she said.

Tripathi said "poverty, socio-economic, psychic compulsions, undeserved adversities in life" constituted new mitigating factors to be considered by courts in commuting a death sentence to life imprisonment. She also said the President of India in all cases, and the Governors of States under their respective jurisdictions, have the power to grant pardons, reprieves, respites or remissions of punishment or, to suspend, remit or commute the sentence of death penalty.

Source: http://www.newindianexpress.com/world/2018/nov/14/india-votes-against-unga-draft-resolution-on-use-of-death-penalty-1898070.html (Accessed 25 December 2018)

Experts say lethal injection is not an alternative to hanging

Written by Sonakshi Awasthi |New Delhi |Published: January 17, 2018 2:36:10 pm

Although the law commission report discussed whether the discretion of mode of execution should lie with the judge or the convict, the question of who would provide the injections to convicts remains unanswered. 

Raising an ethical issue, former president of the Indian Medical Association, KK Aggarwal, said a judge cannot force a doctor to give an injection.

A lawyer had filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the constitutional validity of a provision in the Criminal Procedure Code which provides that the mode of execution of death penalty would be hanging by the neck. The SC, however, said that it’s the Centre’s prerogative to decide the modes of carrying out capital punishment. “We can’t say what should be the mode of carrying out a death sentence. Tell us what is happening in other countries,” the apex court asked the Centre. In its reply, the Centre said lethal injection was “not workable” as there were several instances of it failing. Rishi Malhotra, the petitioner, said the provision of Criminal Procedure Code stating death penalty is “violative of Article 21 (right to life and liberty) of the Constitution” and being “barbaric, inhuman and cruel”. “There have been cases where the neck has been fractured, yet the man is alive,” Malhotra said.

Rishi Malhotra

The 187th report of the Law Commission on mode of execution of death sentence stated in length about the use of lethal injections as an alternative apart from other methods which were used earlier. The Commission received responses from high court and subordinate court judges on the report and it stated, “All of the 80% judges who are in favour of amendment of Section 354(5) have suggested that administering the lethal injection should be the other mode of execution of death sentence.” Most of the states in the US use lethal injections as an alternative means to end lives of convicts in cases of death penalty. However, administration of a lethal injection on a convict does come with complications and USA has been facing concerns regarding the method as well. “In some cases of death penalty in USA, the death has not been instantaneous. It has been prolonged over 15-30 minutes and with suffering,” said chairman of Fortis Escorts Heart Institute Ashok Seth.

Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/india/experts-say-lethal-injection-is-not-an-alternative-to-hanging-5028445/ (Accessed 24 December 2018)

Indian Supreme Court upholds death sentences in Delhi gang rape

By Huizhong Wu, CNN

Updated 1841 GMT (0241 HKT) May 5, 2017

New Delhi (CNN)Four men convicted of a gang rape that shocked India and attracted worldwide attention will be executed.

Four convicts in the Delhi Gang-Rape, 2013

India's Supreme Court on Friday upheld a lower court's decision to sentence the men to death. The judgment met with applause in the courtroom, according to CNN affiliate News18. "We are very happy that (the) Supreme Court has heard our voice, and that they understood Nirbhaya's pain in this matter, and that along with Nirbhaya the whole country has found justice," the victim's father, Badrinath Singh, told reporters outside the court, using a nickname for his daughter that means "fearless one." "We need to work so that the type of crime that happened to Nirbhaya will not happen again," Asha Singh, the victim's mother, said at a press briefing.

Parents of Nirbhaya, who was gangraped on December 16, 2012

"This fight is not ours alone. This is every man's fight. This is everyone's fight. This is every woman's fight." Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh Singh were originally sentenced in September 2013, but they appealed the decision in the country's top court. Another perpetrator was underage at the time and received a lesser sentence, while a sixth attacker died in prison. The case led to protests across India and intense media coverage around the world, shining a light on India's pervasive problem of sexual violence against women. Executions are rare in India. While hundreds of people were sentenced to death last year, only three executions have been carried out since 2007, according to Amnesty International. 

Horrific crime

On the evening of December 16, 2012, Jyoti Singh Pandey, a physiotherapy student in Delhi, was leaving a movie theater after watching "The Life of Pi" with a male friend. It was late when they left the theater, so the pair got on a private bus to go to their suburban homes. That was when their nightmare started. According to police, the bus driver and at least five other men were drunk and looking for a "joy ride." Police said the men took turns raping the woman, using an iron rod to violate her as the bus drove around the city for almost an hour. Her male companion was beaten as he tried to fight them off. When they had finished, the men dumped their two victims by the side of the road.

Following the ordeal, the woman's injuries were so severe some internal organs had to be removed. She died two weeks later at a hospital in Singapore. "I want them burned alive," the dying victim told her mother and a visiting magistrate who was recording her statement at the hospital. 

Fight for justice

In the days following the rape, police arrested and jailed six men. Thousands of Indians marched in protest at the crime across the nation's capital and in cities around the country. The outrage pushed India's government to set up the Justice Verma Committee to come up with legal solutions to reduce sexual violence. It also passed laws setting stricter penalties for these types of crime and set up a fund in honor of the victim. But justice has not been a straight and easy path.

(Late) Justice J.S. Verma

India today

Though the case sparked widespread calls for reform in India, according to government records, there was an increase of 50% in the number of reported rapes in the past five years, to 34,000 in 2015. Experts said the increase was likely caused by a broadening of the definition of what constitutes rape, and more openness about reporting attacks. However, many warn the figures are still likely an underestimation. The Delhi gang rape case was an outlier in that the victim did not know the perpetrators. Of reported rapes, according to official statistics, 95% were committed by someone known to the victim. Activists and policy makers have expressed frustration at the lack of progress, saying there is no political will to move forward on the issue. "There hasn't been the push needed to implement these laws at the state level," Aruna Kashyap, a lawyer with Human Rights Watch, told CNN in January. "The overall response to women's safety is rooted in protectionism -- keep them at home, keep them safe -- rather than create spaces that are safe and equal."

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/05/asia/india-gang-rape-death-penalty/ (Accessed 23 December 2018)

He deserved death sentence, say Akshay’s family members (Nirbhaya - Delhi)

Patna, May 5 (IANS) Akshay, a convict in the fatal 2012 gang rape of a 23-year-old paramedical student, deserved the death sentence, his family members said after the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty for him and three others in the case on Friday.

“We have ended our relationship with him; Akshay is no more our family member; we have nothing to do with him,” a close family member told IANS over telephone from Lahang Karma village in Aurangabad district, about 150 km from here. “Please, we do not want to talk about him, he is our past, not present,” said another family member, as most of the family members of Akshay termed the apex court’s decision “right”. People in his village refused to talk about him as he brought disrepute to the village. “Our village was defamed due to Akshay’s involvement in the infamous case. We don’t want to discuss anything to defame our village any further,” Satender Kumar Singh, a villager said.

However, according to a neighbour of Akshay’s family, the entire family and some relatives were glued to the television set on Friday, “hoping against all hope that the apex court would overturn the death penalty.” “They were hopeful against all hope for some relief. It proved useless as Akshay’s fate was sealed the day he was convicted. The apex court only upheld it,” a villager said. The four — Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Thakur — were convicted for raping and assaulting the 23-year-old paramedical student inside a moving bus in Delhi on December 16, 2012. The rapists, six in all, pounced on the young woman who had boarded the bus with her boyfriend to go home after seeing a movie “Life of Pi”.

The four convicts in Delhi gang-rape, 2012

As the bus moved on south Delhi roads, the convicts pulled out her internal organs with a rusted L-shaped iron rod used with a wheel jack. This led to her death due to internal injuries 13 days later in a Singapore hospital. After committing the crime, they dumped the woman and her friend on the side of a road. Some onlookers alerted the police. The sheer brutality of the crime led to nationwide revulsion and street protests. A fifth accused, Ram Singh, committed suicide in Tihar Central Jail in the national capital. The sixth, a juvenile, who was accused of ripping apart the woman’s intestines, was sent to a correction home and has been released after serving his probation period.

Source: https://www.india.com/news/agencies/he-deserved-death-sentence-say-akshays-family-members-2103105/ (Accessed 23 December 2018)

In triple murder, Supreme Court awards life term, avoids capital punishment

Shibu Thomas and Dhananjay Mahapatra

TNN | Apr 9, 2017, 01.16 AM IST 

NEW DELHI: In a major boost to the campaign against death penalty, the Supreme Court refused to confirm the capital punishment for a man who burned his pregnant wife and son for dowry, saying extreme punishment militated against the reformative theory of jurisprudence. 

Though the crime could qualify for the rarest-of-the rare criteria for awarding the death penalty, the court took a different view after considering the case. “Today, when capital punishment has become a distinctive feature of the death penalty apparatus in India, which somehow breaches the reformative theory of punishment under criminal law, we are not inclined to award the same in the peculiar facts and circumstances of the present case,” said a bench of Justices Pinaki C Ghose and R F Nariman on Friday. “Therefore, confinement till natural life of the accused respondent shall fulfil the requisite criteria of punishment,” the bench said, ordering Nisar Ramzan Sayyed to jail for the rest of his life for the murder of his wife and three-year-old son in 2010. The SC took note of the Law Commission’s recent report. “We have noticed that the Law Commission has recommended the abolition of death penalty for all the crimes other than terrorism-related offences and waging war,” the bench said. ‘Guilt of man proved by wife’s dying declaration’ 

Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose, retired judge of the Supreme Court of India

Coming to the case in hand, the bench said the guilt of the accused husband was proved by the dying declaration given by the critically injured wife. “Under these circumstances, where there is no other eyewitness to the incident, the failure on the part of the accused respondent to explain how his pregnant wife and their minor child met with an unnatural death due to burn injuries sustained at their house leads to an inference which goes against the accused husband,” it said. “We have found the dying declarations of the deceased with consistent allegations about demand of dowry and modus operandi of the offence which resulted in the death of the declarant and her minor child.

Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman, Supreme Court India

Before coming to the conclusion in the present case, we would like to emphasise on the principle enumerated in the famous legal maxim of the law of evidence, i.e Nemo Moriturus Raesumitur Mentire, which means a man will not meet his maker with a lie in his mouth. Our Indian law also recognises this fact that ‘a dying man seldom lies’ or, in other words, ‘truth sits upon the lips of a dying man’,” it said. On the question whether death sentence should be awarded to the convict, the bench said even after applying the rarest-ofrare-case principle, it was not able to convince itself to award the death penalty as it violated the reform theory in criminal law. Thus, it decided to award life sentence to the husband.

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/in-triple-murder-supreme-court-awards-life-term-avoids-capital-punishment/articleshowprint/58087884.cms  (Accessed 23 December 2018)

Death sentence for man convicted of killing Kerala family (Kerala)

Published: March 21, 2017 12:52

Akhel Mathew, Correspondent

Thiruvananthapuram: A 30-year-old migrant worker convicted of murdering his employer and his parents in Kerala’s Kottayam district has been handed the death sentence.

The Kottayam Principal Sessions Court said on Tuesday the crime committed by Narendra Kumar fell within the rarest of rare category, and ruled that the convict must pay Rs 300,000 and another Rs 25,000 he had stolen from his victims, to the surviving member of the family. The incident happened on May 16, 2015, at Parambuzha near Kottayam, where Kumar was employed by a dry cleaning firm run by Praveen Lal, 28 and his parents, Mooleparambil Lalason, 71, and Prasannakumari, 62. The dry cleaning and laundry unit was attached to the family’s house.

Kumar had come from Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh to Kerala in search of work. He committed the crime apparently for money. After bludgeoning all three, and striking them with an axe, Kumar also gave them electric shocks to ensure they were all dead. Praveen Lal was murdered first.

Kumar then got his parents to come to the house and murdered them, too. After the crime, he hired an autorickshaw to go to the Kottayam railway station, from where he went to Goa and Mumbai on way to Uttar Pradesh. Kerala police searched for him relentlessly and a team led by the circle inspector of Pampady, Saju Varghese finally nabbed him from Uttar Pradesh. Kumar had been doing odd works at the laundry unit, including pressing clothes. He later confessed to police that he had committed the crime to make enough money to settle his debts.

Source: https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/india/death-sentence-for-man-convicted-of-killing-kerala-family-1.1997631 (Accessed 23 December 2018)

SC heard seven death penalty appeals in 2016, confirmed none

Written by Utkarsh Anand |New Delhi |

Published: March 1, 2017 2:22:55 am 

In three cases, accused were acquitted; 397 on death row

INDICATING application of stringent tests before sending convicts to the gallows, the Supreme Court did not confirm the death penalty in any of the seven cases of criminal appeals that it decided in 2016. A year before, in 2015, the apex court had confirmed eight out of nine death penalty cases, including that of 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts convict Yakub Memon. According to a report compiled by the Centre on the Death Penalty, National Law University Delhi, not only did the court keep off awarding death penalty, it acquitted the accused in three out of the seven cases. While 71 cases of death sentences were pending in the apex court at the end of 2016, a total of 397 prisoners were on death row with their appeals pending either in high courts or in the Supreme Court as on December 31, 2016.

The Supreme Court of India. Photo: Ramesh Pathania/Mint

Uttar Pradesh topped the list of states with the highest number of death row prisoners at 70. It was followed by Maharashtra with 47, West Bengal 39 and Madhya Pradesh with 37. The report, made public on Tuesday, stated that 11 death row prisoners could not be classified state-wise since they were convicted under Central laws, such as the Arms Act. Only one person was sentenced to death in a rape and murder case by the SC in 2016 when it confirmed the extreme punishment at the stage of review, stated the report.

In 2016, trial courts across the country handed down the death sentence to 136 people, high courts confirmed punishment only in 15 cases in toto while the Supreme Court upheld none. Trial courts in 2015 had sentenced 70 convicts to death. More than 60 per cent of the cases in which courts awarded the death sentence were murder cases while 15 per cent were cases of murder and sexual assaults. President Pranab Mukherjee also took a call on seven mercy petitions moved by death row convicts in 2016 under Article 72 of the Constitution.

He rejected the mercy petitions of six prisoners, and commuted the death sentence of one convict. In the order of commutation, the President stated that the convict would spend the rest of his life in prison. Previous reports by the law university had said at least 62 per cent of death row inmates were first-time offenders; around 60 per cent had not completed secondary education; and nearly 75 per cent belong to economically weaker sections.

Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/india/supreme-court-heard-seven-death-penalty-appeals-in-2016-confirmed-none-4548782/ (Accessed 23 December 2018)

Lynchings Show Mindset Comfortable With Death Penalty: Gopalkrishna Gandhi

Press Trust Of India

Updated:December 4, 2016, 12:27 PM IST

Acts like lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq show a mindset that is entirely comfortable with the death penalty, wholly exculpatory of torture as a means of extorting confessions, says Gopalkrishna Gandhi who is a known campaigner against capital punishment.

Acts like lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq show a mindset that is entirely comfortable with the death penalty, wholly exculpatory of torture as a means of extorting confessions, says Gopalkrishna Gandhi who is a known campaigner against capital punishment. Gandhi has come out with a new book Abolishing The Death Penalty: Why India Should Say No To Capital Punishment, published by Aleph Book Company, in which through in-depth analysis and marshalling of considered opinion of jurists, human rights activists, scholars and criminologists among others, he argues why the death penalty should be abolished with immediate effect in India.

According to Gandhi, death penalty asks to be questioned on grounds of the right to life, the right to self-defence against battery, assault, homicide and murder. "States that keep the death penalty alive and do not realise the absurdity of that oxymoron may not be accused of a sadistic pleasure in dealing death. But they cannot be exempted from the accusation of deriving a sense of pleasure in the death penalty as a power, a perquisite, a prerogative that no one else enjoys," he writes. The former West Bengal governor says the power to commute a death sentence to one of life imprisonment is part of the power of the death penalty.

File photo of former West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi (Getty Images)

"And even in the exercise of that pardoning prerogative, the state is using its exceptional privilege, its unique power. It is the exclusivity of this power, in its extreme nature, and indeed in its exceptionality that it is tantamount to a reserved 'pleasure'. And it is in that privileged uniqueness that it is so outrageously capricious and so flagrantly promiscuous," he argues. Gandhi, currently distinguished professor of history and politics at Ashoka University, says public opinion in India has always been "death-penalty minded" and is now even more so. "It is in fact more retribution-minded, vengeance-minded and geared to dealing death," he says. He then cites the lynching of a prisoner detained on suspicion of rape in Dimapur in Nagaland last year which included him being dragged out of jail, stripped, paraded naked and then beaten to death, in mob adjudication.

"The mob-lynching and murder of Mohammad Akhlaq in a village in Uttar Pradesh on September 28, 2015 on the rumour that he had killed a cow and eaten its meat, is another grim instance of mob fury that stops at nothing less than killing. These acts show a mindset that is entirely comfortable with the death penalty, wholly exculpatory of torture as a means of extorting confessions," Gandhi writes. Abolishing the death penalty, he says, is not about the final punishment from which there is no return but about the first principle of penology which is about return, a return to civility. "The debate about the death penalty lies beyond 'to hang or not to hang' to a discussion on the criminal investigation system, on the law's transparency, the state's impartiality, a civilised penology," he says. "We do not choose to be born. But once arrived, we do choose, through programmed genomes, instinct and will, to stay alive. In fact, we do more than choose. We resist anything that comes in the way of our staying alive. That resistance is built into the apparatus of staying alive," he says.

In the book, Gandhi asks fundamental questions about the ultimate legal punishment awarded to those accused of major crimes. Is taking another life a just punishment or an act as inhuman as the crime that triggered it? Does having capital punishment in the law books deter crime? His conclusions are unequivocal: Cruel in its operation, ineffectual as deterrence, unequal in its application in an uneven society, liable like any punishment to be in error but incorrigibly so, these grievous flaws that are intrinsic to the death penalty are compounded by yet another - it leaves the need for retribution (cited as its primary 'good') unrequited and simply makes society more bloodthirsty.

Source: https://www.news18.com/news/india/lynchings-show-mindset-comfortable-with-death-penalty-gopalkrishna-gandhi-1319076.html (Accessed 22 December 2018)

Man gets death in 2012 triple murders (Maharashtra)

TNN | Aug 31, 2016, 02.52 PM IST

Vishwas Kothari

PUNE: An additional sessions court in the city has awarded death sentence to a man who killed his mother, wife and two-and-a-half-year-old daughter at Champaratna society in Wanowrie on October 4, 2012. The court also sentenced the convict Vishwajit Kerba Masalkar (29), a site manager with a housekeeping management firm, to life imprisonment for attempting to kill his 75-year-old neighbour, who had witnessed the attack on the deceased victims. An illicit affair with a girl led Masalkar to commit the murders, the police said. 

He initially tried to mislead the police in relation to the triple murders by lodging an FIR stating that armed unknown robbers had struck at his house between 3pm and 7.45pm on the day of the incident and killed his mother, wife, daughter besides, attacking his neighbour and decamping with cash and gold ornaments totally worth Rs 3.07 lakh. However, during investigations, the police recovered a pink pouch containing the stolen ornaments and kept behind his father's photograph in the house. In his interrogation that followed, the police established his illicit affair as the motive behind the triple murders. 

The same was later corroborated by the girl, with whom he had an affair, in her statement. The injured eye-witness too narrated to the police what he had seen at Masalkar's house and how he was attacked from behind by the convict with a hammer.

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/Man-gets-death-in-2012-triple-murders/articleshow/53943750.cms (Accessed 20 December 2018)

75 death sentences in India last year (2015): Amnesty

Shemin Joy NEW DELHI, Apr 06, 2016, DHNS, APR 06 2016, 00:39AM IST

At least 75 people were sentenced to death in India last year with some imposed by special courts, whose proceedings did not meet international fair trial standards, a report has claimed. 

The report “Death sentences and Executions in 2015” released by Amnesty International on Tuesday also said there were at least 1,634 executions in 25 countries in 2015, which included one in India where Mumbai serial blast convict Yakub Memon was hanged. The number of executions could rise as Amnesty said it could not access data from China, which is a “state secret”. The executions for 2015 were the highest in last 25 years, it said adding it was more than 50% compared to 2014 figure of 1,061 in 22 countries. Iran follows China with 977 executions, Pakistan 326 and Saudi Arabia 158. 

While India had around 75 death sentences last year, Egypt was on the top of the list aer China with 538, Bangladesh 197, Nigeria 171 and Pakistan 121. In India, almost all death sentences were for murder while at least four people were sentenced to gallows for aggravated circumstances of rape following amendments to the Criminal Code in 2013. At least 320 people remained under sentence of death at the end of 2015. 

The Amnesty report also claimed that special courts whose proceedings “did not meet international fair trial standards” imposed death sentences in Bangladesh and India. On Memon’s execution, the report said: “he had been convicted under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act 1987, a law that contains provisions incompatible with international fair trial standards”. The number of death sentences could rise as the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has not provided this year’s official figures. In 2014, Amnesty had reported at least 64 death sentences while later NCRB reported that there were 95 such sentences in 2014. 

The report also noted that courts and authorities had commuted a number of death sentences during the year. Three prisoners whose mercy petitions the president had rejected in 2014 had their death sentences commuted to life imprisonments by courts. The Amnesty also found fault with the law commission for falling short of recommending abolition of death penalty for all crimes. The commission had suggested retention of death penalty for terrorism-related offences.

Source: https://www.deccanherald.com/content/538813/75-death-sentences-india-last.html (Accessed 20 December 2018)

Kamduni gangrape case: Kolkata court awards death sentence to 3 convicts, life term for 3 others

Jan 31, 2016 08:32:32 IST

Kolkata: A Kolkata court on Saturday sentenced three convicts to death and awarded life term to three in the infamous Kamduni gangrape case. With the arguments on the quantum of punishment not concluded on Friday, the court on Saturday continued with the hearing before deciding the sentence to the six people convicted in the brutal gangrape and murder of a college student in West Bengal's Kamduni village.The court of additional district and sessions judge Sanchita Sarkar on Thursday convicted Saiful Ali, Ansar Ali and Amin Ali of gangrape and murder. The trio got death penalty. Three other accused—Sheikh Emanul Islam, Aminur Islam and Bhola Naskar—have been convicted of gangrape, criminal conspiracy and causing disappearance of evidence and have been sentenced to life imprisonment.

Amid tight security arrangements, the proceedings of the day began with the defence counsel pleading that the case did not warrant awarding death penalty. With the counsel yet to conclude their arguments, the court announced it will pronounce the sentencing on Saturday upon conclusion of the arguments. The 20-year-old girl was attacked while she was returning home from college on 7 June 2013. The second-year BA student was forcibly taken inside a factory where she was gangraped and then savagely murdered, sparking widespread outrage across the country.

Nine people were arrested and charged for the crime, with the court on Thursday acquitting Rafiqul Islam and Nur Ali while the ninth accused Gopal Naskar died while the trial was on. The residents of Kamduni led by Tumpa Koyal and Moushumi Koyal continue to press with their demand for death penalty for the convicts and also opposed the acquittal of the two accused. Led by the two Koyals and several eminent personalities from the city, many of the friends and relatives of the victim, had floated a platform 'Kamduni Pratibadi Mancha' seeking speedy justice and capital punishment to the guilty. They knocked on the doors of top political and constitutional authorities including the president, demanding the trial be expedited.

Source: https://www.firstpost.com/india/kamduni-gangrape-case-kolkata-court-awards-death-sentence-to-3-convicts-life-term-for-3-others-2605000.html (Accessed on 20 December 2018)

Death Penalty for Heinous Crime Not Barbaric, Says Supreme Court

All India | Reported by A Vaidyanathan, Edited by Anindita Sanyal | Updated: August 23, 2015 20:23 IST 

NEW DELHI: In the wake of the debate over the death penalty following the execution of Mumbai attack convict Yakub Memon, the Supreme Court has said capital punishment is not inhuman or barbaric and will not violate the right to life and liberty in heinous crimes. The observation came on Friday from a three-judge bench which was hearing the appeal from a murder case convict who has been given the death sentence.

Vikram Singh, who had been convicted for abducting and killing a 16-year-old, had challenged his death sentence, arguing that capital punishment is applicable only to terrorists. The bench of Justices TS Thakur, RK Agrawal and AK Goel said, "A sentence of death in a case of murder may be rare, but if the courts have found it is the only sentence that can be awarded, it is difficult to revisit that question..." What was important, the top court said, was that the punishment should be should be proportionate to the crime.

"Death penalty in a case of kidnapping or abduction will not qualify to be described as barbaric or inhuman so as to infringe the right to life guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution," the court said. While death penalty is awarded in the rarest of the rare cases, the last few persons to be executed were people convicted on terror charges - Afzal Guru, who was convicted in the 2001 Parliament attack case and Ajamal Kasab, the lone Pakistani terrorist caught for the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai. But it was Yakub Memon's execution that not only triggered questions from the civil society about his punishment, but also on the larger debate on death penalty.

Vikram Singh had been arrested for the abduction and murder of school student Abhi Verma in 2005. He was awarded the death sentence by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which was later confirmed by the Supreme Court. He had challenged the death sentence given for the crime he was booked under - kidnapping for ransom (Section 364A). Punishments under the section include death sentence, life imprisonment and a fine.

Source: https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/death-penalty-for-heinous-crime-not-barbaric-says-supreme-court-1210194 (Accessed on 18 December 2018)

Undeterred by malice - Reader's Digest Editor - A.S. Panneerselvan

AUGUST 01, 2015 01:32 IST
A.S. Panneerselvan

readerseditor@thehindu.co.in

CHENNAI, 16/10/2014: A.S. Panneerselvan, The Hindu Readers' Editor. Photo: V.V.Krishnan | Photo Credit: V.V. Krishnan

Opposition to the death penalty has been the stated policy of this newspaper as far back as the Bhagat Singh trial.

I am gnawed by the growing insensitivity that refuses to see the schizoid in mourning the death of the former President Abdul Kalam, who passionately argued against the death penalty in response to a Law Commission consultation paper, and celebrating capital punishment for Yakub Memon. The reigning idea of majoritarian jingoism that is hell-bent on destroying plural polity has unleashed the most cruel avalanche of abuses against this newspaper’s considered, well-thought-out and humane stand against the death penalty. There is a targeted attack on the Publisher, Editor and writers of this newspaper for their principle to abide by their conscience. These urban-educated hounds are baying for the blood of all those who understand the barbarity of a sentence that snuffs out life.

The tragic irony is that they expect the Readers’ Editor (RE) to fight for their case of bigotry and hatred. The RE is neither the spokesperson for the high-decibel, shrill trolling mob nor the advocate for a narrative that harms the salient features of the democratic fabric. It will become dereliction of duty if this office fails to take cognisance of any fair complaints against the paper or its writers. But, it will be unbecoming of an RE if he were to either endorse or even reproduce vitriol, innuendoes and insinuations.

The Terms of Reference for the RE clearly state that his role is “To collect, consider, investigate, respond to, and, where appropriate, come to a conclusion about readers’ comments, concerns, and complaints in a prompt and timely manner, from a position of independence within the paper… To seek the views and, where appropriate, the written comments of journalists whose work is the focus of readers’ concerns: to take these views into account when responding to readers, and to make critical appraisals, if judged necessary, on an objective and fully-informed basis.” The operating words and the governing phrases here are: ‘from a position of independence within the paper’ and ‘to make critical appraisals, if judged necessary, on an objective and fully-informed basis’. The position of independence within the paper does not mean undermining the editorial integrity, intellectual inquiry, quest for justice and the desire for dissemination of news and views. The critical appraisals, on an objective and fully-informed basis, mean that the issue at hand is evaluated using the yardstick of elements of good journalistic practices and not on the whims of a given moment.

Consistent position

The opposition to the death penalty has been the stated policy of this newspaper as far back as the Bhagat Singh trial. It is beyond the scope of this column to go into the merits of Memon’s trial. But, it is well within the mandate of the RE to counter one of the devious allegations — that has been repeated over the last few days — that The Hindu has taken a stand against the death penalty because of the present BJP-led NDA government. The stand was not determined by the ruling dispensation at Delhi but because the death penalty is barbaric and inhuman. The paper never condoned the crimes of the individual who faced the gallows. Nor did it ever question the need for stringent punishment for heinous crime. The number of stories, editorials and opinion articles against the death penalty in The Hindu is innumerable. Let me share a couple of interventions this newspaper made during the UPA regime.

On August 31, 2011, the paper reproduced George Orwell’s essay “ >A hanging” with a note from the Editor. The note, unambiguously, read: “The barbarity and “unspeakable wrongness” of capital punishment — of “cutting a life short when it is in full tide” — has rarely been brought out as powerfully and as movingly as in George Orwell’s 2000-word essay, “ >A Hanging”. Published in 1931 in The Adelphi, a British literary magazine, this journalistic gem describes the execution of a criminal in Burma, where Eric Arthur Blair, which was Orwell’s real name, served in the British Imperial Police between 1922 and 1927. The clinical tone of the narration of the forced march to the gallows serves as a perfect foil to the moral revulsion and horror that Orwell wanted his readers to experience. The Hindu publishes, with permission from the copyright holder, “>A Hanging” as part of its editorial campaign for the abolition of capital punishment in India. This is in the context of the scheduled execution, now stayed, of three convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case and the impending execution of other convicts on death row.”

When Afzal Guru was hanged in 2013, the newspaper’s editorial, “ >Vengeance isn’t justice” (February 10, 2013), said: “Indians must remember the foundational principle of our Republic, the guardian of all our rights and freedoms, isn’t popular sentiment: it is justice, which in turn is based on the consistent application of principles. For one overriding reason, Guru’s hanging ought to concern even those unmoved by his particular case, or the growing ethics-based global consensus against the death penalty. There is no principle underpinning the death penalty in India today except vengeance. And vengeance is no principle at all.” 

My own revulsion against the death penalty came through literature. I had a lump in my throat more than thirty years ago when I read Ilango Adigal’s The Silapathikaram. As Kannagi was leaving Madurai after her husband fell victim to capital punishment, she wailed: “With my husband/I entered this city through the East Gate:/I now leave by the West Gate, alone.”

Source: https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/Readers-Editor/readers-editor-writes-about-opposition-to-death-penalty/article7486357.ece (Accessed on 18 December 2018)

Govt lost mercy petition of 4 Maoist convicts on death row

Updated: Jul 31, 2015 00:14 IST

First Published: Jul 31, 2015 00:11 IST

Four death row convicts in Bihar have been waiting for a decision on their mercy petition for more than a decade because their plea to be spared the gallows was lost somewhere in Delhi.

Four death row convicts in Bihar have been waiting for a decision on their mercy petition for more than a decade because their plea to be spared the gallows was lost somewhere in Delhi. The four Maoist Communist Centre cadre had been sentenced to death by a TADA court in 2001 for the Bara massacre in Bihar’s Gaya district. Bir Krishna Mochi, Nanhe Lal, Birkuer Paswan and Dharam were convicted for being part of the group that killed 35 people from the Bhumihar community on 13 February 1992.

A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court confirmed the death sentence by a 2-1 majority in 2002, with the dissenting judge, Justice MB Shah – who now heads the special investigative team on black money – unconvinced about their guilt. A mercy petition filed by them in 2003 initially shuttled between different departments of the Bihar government before it was sent to the Centre on July 7, 2004. And then, everyone forgot about the mercy petition.

It was only last year that human rights activist Suhas Chakma figured someone had lost the petition. “We noticed that neither the Home ministry nor Rashtrapati Bhavan seemed to have any record of this mercy petition but the Bihar government insisted it had been sent,” Chakma, who heads the Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR), said. “This is exactly the kind of a case that former president APJ Abdul Kalam would have had in mind when he worried that only the poor and downtrodden ended up in the death row,” he added, contrasting the government’s lackadaisical approach with the super-sonic speed with which Yakub Memon’s mercy petition was cleared in just about a week.

At the National Human Rights Commission that is hearing Chakma’s request for its help to spare the four men from the gallows, the Bihar government last November told the panel that they had sent another copy of the petitions to the home ministry. Chakma said there were several cases where the Supreme Court had commuted death sentence because of a three year delay in processing the mercy petitions. In this case, the delay exceeds 12 years, he said.

Source: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india/govt-lost-mercy-petition-of-4-maoist-convicts-on-death-row/story-wbh5p0An1ulPixzsJNUptN.html (Accessed on 18 December 2018)

'93 Mumbai Blasts' Convict Yakub's Essay Says 'We' Are One Big Family 'India'

Published: 25th July 2015 12:07 PM | Last Updated: 25th July 2015 01:35 PM

Yakub Menon, a convict of Mumbai serial blasts wrote an essay praising the way Indian constitution has brought unity in diversity in the nation.

Yakub Menon, a convict of Mumbai serial blasts, who might be hanged to death on July 30, wrote an essay expressing his absolute trust in the Indian constitution. "Constitution of India reflects unity in diversity," was the title of the essay Yakub wrote on November 26, 2013 in an essay competition organized by the Indra Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). Yakub's death sentence was backed by the Supreme Court of India in the same year. Yakub's essay reads: "The need of the hour is to see that each of us 'WE' must think himself/herself to be a member of one family i.e. India. We should be considerate to lesser privileged. We must learn to tolerate and love each other as a family member, keeping with our tradition we should love all nations and become citizens of this global village — one great family. Each of us should play our role properly, sincerely and truly, otherwise this great constitution will remain on paper only."

The convict of the Mumbai serial blasts who is currently kept at the Tihar Jail got "A-grade" for the essay but could not qualify for the prize as the essay exceeded the given word limit. Although any good student could have managed to scramble the words in order to write such an essay, but ironically the word of peace and unity came from the person convicted for being involved in the heinous terror acts during the Mumbai serial blasts in 1993. Yakub has also mentioned in his essay that how the Constitution of India has done away with the British communal policies, cutting down the communal gaps in the nation. 

Yakub Memon

In the essay referring to the Constitution of India he wrote, "Reducing the wide gap between the people of India created by the British policy of divide and rule……." He further wrote, "The way national highways connect far and remote regions of your country, the articles of our Constitution connect us literally and figuratively." Yakub has also pointed out the ill practices of the people of India: "In spite of a great Constitution, greed and corruption are posing a threat to unity and India's reputation as a civilized nation. People of India need moral and spiritual cleansing to see that we do not succumb to the evil of greed and corruption.".

Source: http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2015/jul/25/93-Mumbai-Blasts-Convict-Yakubs-Essay-Says-We-Are-One-Big-Family-India-791451.html (Accessed on 18 December 2018)