Abolish Death Penalty India: Parkash Singh Badal hell-bent on release of terrorists, despite criticism

Friday, February 6, 2015

Parkash Singh Badal hell-bent on release of terrorists, despite criticism

Manjeet Sehgal | Mail Today | Chandigarh, January 12, 2015 | UPDATED 10:49 IST

Despite facing widespread criticism, the Parkash Singh Badalled Punjab government seems to be going ahead with its agenda to secure premature release for convicted Khalistan militants who were sentenced to life imprisonment. The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) government has already moved the Supreme Court seeking its nod for exercising the premature release policy to free all lifers, most of them terrorists, who have completed their required sentence and were eligible for remission. In a major relief to the Punjab and Haryana governments, former terrorist Gurbaksh Singh Khalsa was on Saturday forcibly lifted from Lakhnaur Sahib Gurdwara where he had been fasting for the last 58 days. He was admitted to the civil hospital by the Ambala police.

Khalsa has been seeking the release of seven Sikh prisoners, including those convicted for the assassination of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh in 1995 and the 1993 New Delhi bomb blast case. The gurdwara where he was holding his fast-unto-death had become a chosen spot for antinational elements, who assembled there and shouted pro-Khalistan slogans. Earlier on Saturday Sikh organisations, including the hardliner groups, called Punjab shutdown to extend support to Khalsa. The shutdown call evoked a mixed response. The impact was felt in Amritsar and Ajnala, while life remained unaffected in other parts of the state, including Batala, Phagwara, Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur.

The Amritsar district administration had deployed heavy police force in the city and other towns as a precautionary measure. The radical Sikhs protested in many parts of the state and demanded release of the Sikh prisoners. "We have demanded immediate release of the Sikh prisoners who are languishing in various jails. They should be released as per the government policy," Sikh Youth Federation Bhindranwale president Balwant Singh Gopala said. Khalsa,who began his indefinite hunger strike from November 14, 2014 in Ambala, sought the release of convicted terrorists Jagtar Singh Hawara, Paramjit Singh Bheora, Lakhwinder Singh alias Lakha, Gurmit Singh and Shamsher Singh. Khalsa's demand list also includes the release of 1993 Dehi bomb blast accused Devinderpal Singh Bhullar, who was awarded death sentence by a Delhi court. His death sentence was converted into life imprisonment by the apex court on medical grounds.

Khalsa had also expressed the desire to visit the Golden Temple Complex, but was not given permission. Punjab CM Parkash Singh Badal in his December 24, 2014 letter had requested various state governments, including Delhi and Chandigarh for premature release of 13 convicts. Meanwhile, in a major twist to the issue, the Punjab government has disclosed that it had already moved the apex court seeking Sikh prisoners' release.

"The state government has filed the application in the SC through its counsel Jagjit Singh Chabbra on January 8," a spokesperson for the chief minister's office said. He said the application in the court had been moved upon the instruction of Punjab CM. He said the government has also sought permission to consider and decide applications of the life convicts seeking premature release in the interest of the justice.

Source: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/parkash-singh-badal-akali-dal-release-of-terrorists/1/412736.html [last accessed 06.02.2015]

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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

Friday, February 6, 2015

Parkash Singh Badal hell-bent on release of terrorists, despite criticism

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