Rights watchdog slams large number of death sentences, says they have failed to curb crime

Satya Prakash, Hindustan Times, New Delhi | Updated: Sep 01, 2014 08:36 IST President Pranab Mukherjee has rejected 97% of the mercy petitions since assuming the top office in 2012, a human rights watch group has said, stressing that death penalty has failed to act as a deterrent in the country. Mukherjee, who assumed office on July 25, 2012, considered 23 mercy pleas involving 31 death-row convicts out of which only one was granted mercy as on August 31, 2014, the Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) said in its report titled 'India: Death penalty has no deterrence'. The Delhi-based ACHR is a non-governmental organisation engaged in protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the Asian region. Mukherjee's decisions are in sharp contrast to those of his predecessor Pratibha Patil, who granted a record 30 pardons, over 90 per cent of India's total death sentences pardoned ever. She rejected only two mercy pleas during her tenure. Mostly awarded in murder cases, death penalty is now also given to repeat offenders in rape cases. ACHR Director Suhas Chakma, however, said that high number of death penalty has not brought down crime rate. "The empirical evidence of the government of India, however, establishes that death penalty does not act as deterrent," said Chakma, who is also coordinator of the national campaign for abolition of death penalty in India. The ACHR said the government should "amend all the laws that provide death penalty" and replace the same with life imprisonment. Citing National Crimes Records Bureau (NCRB) data, the ACHR report stated that from 2001 to 2012, death sentence of 1,552 convicts were confirmed while the death sentences for 4,382 convicts were commuted to life imprisonment. "Death penalty can never be a substitute to prevention, effective and prompt investigation and speedy justice delivery system against crimes on which the government of India has failed," Chakma said. On the contrary, the report said, there was a drastic fall in murder cases following a considerable reduction in executions since 1982 when the Supreme Court propounded the "rarest of the rare doctrine" for awarding death penalty. Even inclusion of death penalty for repeat offenders of rape has not reduced non-homicidal offences such as rape, the report added. On April 4, 2014, a sessions court in Mumbai became the first in the country to impose death penalty on three repeat offenders of rape under the new Section 376E of the IPC in the infamous Shakti Mill rape case. However, statistics provided by Mumbai police showed that 135 rape cases were reported from April to 15 June 2014 i.e., about 2 rape cases daily, the report said. Similarly, the award of death penalty to four adult accused found guilty of rape and murder in the Delhi gang-rape and murder too failed to act as a deterrent. According to Delhi police data, 616 rape cases were registered in Delhi from January 1, 2014 to April 30, 2014, an average of six cases per day. Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/rights-watchdog-slams-large-number-of-death-sentences-says-they-have-failed-to-curb-crime/article1-1258858.aspx [last accessed 06.02.2015]

Supreme Court commutes death sentence

Published: 1:58 pm, May 1, 2013 Story By: mattersindia.com

New Delhi: The Supreme Court said that the President’s office took too long to reject the clemency  petition of a prisoner on death row and hence  commuted the death sentence of a murderer to life imprisonment. In 1999 MN Das was convicted by the Supreme Court and sentenced to death. His mercy petition was rejected by President Prtibha Patil, 11 years after he filed it. Das had killed a man in Assam in 1990 then six years later while on bail murdered another. His lawyer has cited the delay in asking for the death sentence to be commuted, ndtv.com reports. Other lawyers of death row prisoners also maintain that the “delay is worse than death.”

The latest development comes contrary to the April 11 ruling when the Supreme Court turned down that same argument in the case of Punjab militant  Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, prime accused  in a 1993 bomb blast in Delhi that killed nine people. Bhullar, a member of a separatist group, argued his death sentence should be commuted to life in prison due to the torment he’d suffered awaiting execution. Bhullar’s appeal was turned down by the President after eight years. In his case the Supreme Court had said that terrorists cannot seek mercy by citing inordinate delays in their appeals.

The latest verdict might have a bearing on the cases of more than 15 prisoners on death row. They include three men for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and four members of the gang led by sandalwood smuggler Veerappan. India was among four countries in the last year that resumed using the death penalty.

Since Pranab Mukherjee was appointed president in July he has rejected mercy petitions of at least seven people, leaving them at risk of execution, Amnesty International said. Two people have been hanged — Mumbai attack gunman Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, and Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri found guilty of participating in a strike on India’s parliament in 2001. Kasab’s was the country’s first execution since 2004.

Source: http://mattersindia.com/supreme-court-commutes-death-sentence/ [accessed 05th May 2013]

Pranab sits on clemency petitions of 11 death row convicts

NEW DELHI Among the ceremonial invitations piled on the desk of India’s new President Pranab Mukherjee sits a small file that could provide the veteran politician with one of his biggest challenges. The folder contains 11 mercy petitions from condemned convicts for whom Mukherjee now represents the last legal obstacle between their death row cells and the hangman. As president, Mukherjee is required to decide on clemency petitions that are forwarded by the home ministry, in the final stage of death penalty appeals process. It is largely an inherited challenge. India has more than 400 people on death row and the courts hand down fresh death sentences every year. But Mukherjee’s three presidential predecessors, while signing off on a number of recommendations for clemency, often stonewalled when it came to appeals the ministry recommended should be rejected. As a result, only one execution has taken place in 15 years - that of a former security guard hanged in 2004 for the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl. The lack of executions has led some to question why India retains a death penalty it so rarely enforces. Colin Gonsalves, an advocate in the Supreme Court and a founder of the Human Rights Law Network, points to surveys showing public opinion strongly in favour of capital punishment. “The idea of revenge is widely accepted here,” Gonsalves said. “If they try to abolish it, then the opposition will appropriate the issue and attack them,” Gonsalves said. Some legal experts believe the hiatus on executions partly reflects reluctance to hang people affiliated with an ethnic, religious or political group. “The government has to wait and check which groups will be upset before you execute someone,” said Supreme Court advocate Sanjay Hegde. Other observers say the main cause of the lack of executions has been the actions - or not - of Mukherjee’s three predecessors, KR Narayanan, APJ Abdul Kalam and Pratibha Patil. The recommendation of the home ministry can be returned for reconsideration - but only once, after which the president is constitutionally obliged to follow the ministry’s lead. However, there is no set time limit for providing the presidential signature, leaving room for endless delays. After taking office in 1997, Narayanan opted to sit on eight clemency petitions until his term expired. Kalam followed suit. As well as the eight he inherited, he received 17 more, but acted on only two. One was approved and the other rejected - leading to India’s last execution in 2004. The growing list of 23 pending appeals was then passed on to Patil who received another nine petitions during her tenure. In an attempt to clear the backlog, Patil acted on the home ministry’s recommendations to grant clemency in 19 cases and refuse it in two, including the case of Rajiv Gandhi’s murderers. She left 11 for Mukherjee, among them several toxic cases, including Mohammed Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri sentenced to death for his role in the 2001 attack on Parliament. Mukherjee may also come under pressure to reject any petition from Mohammed Kasab, the sole surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks, who was sentenced to death two years ago. Source: Oman Tribune Thursday, August 30, 2012 http://www.omantribune.com/index.php?page=news&id=126078&heading=India [accessed on 30th August 2012]