NEW DELHI: Upholding death penalty to a man guilty of burning alive his wife and three children, the Supreme Court on Tuesday said the crime fell in the rarest of rare category and that the accused could not be "reformed or rehabilitated".
The case pertained to Ajitsingh Harnamsingh Gujral of Mumbai, who, after a fight with his wife on the night of April 9-10, 2003, poured gallons of petrol on her and the children, set them on fire and fled. Four days later, he was caught in Madanganj in Ajmer district, Rajasthan.
Discussing a whole gamut of Supreme Court judgments dealing with death penalty and laying down the rarest of rare category guidelines, Justice Katju said: "In our opinion this is one of such cases. Burning living persons to death is a horrible act which causes excruciating pain to the victim, and this could not have been unknown to Gujral."
"A person like Gujral who instead of doing his duty of protecting his family kills them in such a cruel and barbaric manner cannot be reformed or rehabilitated. The balance sheet is heavily against him and accordingly we uphold the death sentence awarded to him," the bench said.
The apex court also examined the trend of death penalty worldwide and noted the divergence — 96 countries have abolished it, 34 have not used it for a considerable period of time while 58 countries still retain it.
Among the European countries, Italy abolished death penalty in 1947, followed by Germany (1949), UK (1973) and France (1981). Canada did it in 1976 and Russia has not imposed death penalty on anyone since 1996. Australia last did in 1967 before formally abolishing it in 2010.
Quoting Amnesty International data, Justice Katju said: "China executes more people than all the rest of the world put together. It has death penalty for a variety of crimes — aggravated murder, drug trafficking, large scale corruption etc."
He said the UN General Assembly in 2007-08 passed a nonbinding resolution for global moratorium of execution with a view to eventually abolishing it. "However, 65% of the world population lives in countries like China, India, Indonesia and the US which continue to apply death penalty, although both India and Indonesia use it rarely," the bench said.
In the Indian context, the bench said only the legislature could abolish death penalty and not the courts. "As long as the death penalty exists in the statute book it has to be imposed in some cases, otherwise it will tantamount to repeal of the death penalty by judiciary," it said.
Source: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-09-14/india/30153982_1_death-penalty-rare-category-justice-katju
accessed on 10th October 2011
Showing posts with label death row phenomenon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death row phenomenon. Show all posts
Monday, October 10, 2011
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Grey area between life and death
CHENNAI: So, legally speaking, what lies between life and death? A lot of grey area, really. Indian criminal jurisprudence does not prescribe death as punishment for a particular offence, however heinous the crime may be. For instance, the maximum punishment provided for in our statute book is not death. Instead, it is "death sentence or life imprisonment."
After holding a person guilty of having committed a heinous offence, a judge has neither legislative policy nor legal principles nor judicial precedents for guidance to impose an appropriate punishment. While highlighting this lacuna, legendary jurist Justice P N Bhagwati says whether it would be a mere life imprisonment or death sentence is decided by the judge's "unguided discretion". In other words, what qualifies as "rarest of rare cases" warranting capital punishment is to be decided on a case to case basis by the judges concerned.
The enormity of this observation would hit us if we apply it on the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
For some reasons, the special TADA court here found all the 26 persons guilty of committing a rarest of rare offence and imposed death sentence on all in 1996. The appeals directly went to the Supreme Court. In 1998, the Supreme Court confirmed death only for four and the remaining convicts simply walked free. In 2000 the death sentence of one of these four, Nalini Sriharan, was commuted to life after a state cabinet recommendation.
From being a part of the 26-strong death convict group, now only three are staring down the barrel.
The Amnesty International, while advocating the total abolition of death sentence throughout the world, cites three reasons to do away with the punishment. Firstly, adopting a religious attitude, it says life is a gift of God/nature, and none except God/nature has any right to take it away.
Secondly, citing economic disparity, it says a litigant's inability to afford a good lawyer has direct nexus to the quantum of punishment. The Amnesty cites the fact that about 90 per cent of convicts in various prisons in the world are underprivileged who could not pay hefty fee to a good lawyer. Thirdly, the fallibility of human judgment is a reason enough not to kill a person even by lawful procedure.
There are, however, judicial officers who feel they have been truly judicious and balanced in choosing cases to award death sentence. "In my 28 year service, nine years of which as sessions judge having power to impose capital punishment, I have not exercised the option even once. Not that I am against death punishment. I have not yet come across that 'rarest of rare case'. We are responsible people. I will not hesitate to award death penalty if acase deserves," a sessions judge told The Times of India.
He says the death penalty should remain in the statute book, to be invoked in deserving cases. "Even if it is not used even once, it will instill a sense of fear in habitual offenders and act as deterrence," he says. Incidentally, the Vellore central prison, where the three condemned prisoners involved in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case are lodged, has a total of six death row convicts and 290 life convicts. A tell-tale evidence that extreme judicial restraint is being exercised before noose is put around a person's neck.
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Grey-area-between-life-and-death/articleshow/9805450.cms
Times of India
TNN | Aug 31, 2011, 08.10AM IST
After holding a person guilty of having committed a heinous offence, a judge has neither legislative policy nor legal principles nor judicial precedents for guidance to impose an appropriate punishment. While highlighting this lacuna, legendary jurist Justice P N Bhagwati says whether it would be a mere life imprisonment or death sentence is decided by the judge's "unguided discretion". In other words, what qualifies as "rarest of rare cases" warranting capital punishment is to be decided on a case to case basis by the judges concerned.
The enormity of this observation would hit us if we apply it on the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
For some reasons, the special TADA court here found all the 26 persons guilty of committing a rarest of rare offence and imposed death sentence on all in 1996. The appeals directly went to the Supreme Court. In 1998, the Supreme Court confirmed death only for four and the remaining convicts simply walked free. In 2000 the death sentence of one of these four, Nalini Sriharan, was commuted to life after a state cabinet recommendation.
From being a part of the 26-strong death convict group, now only three are staring down the barrel.
The Amnesty International, while advocating the total abolition of death sentence throughout the world, cites three reasons to do away with the punishment. Firstly, adopting a religious attitude, it says life is a gift of God/nature, and none except God/nature has any right to take it away.
Secondly, citing economic disparity, it says a litigant's inability to afford a good lawyer has direct nexus to the quantum of punishment. The Amnesty cites the fact that about 90 per cent of convicts in various prisons in the world are underprivileged who could not pay hefty fee to a good lawyer. Thirdly, the fallibility of human judgment is a reason enough not to kill a person even by lawful procedure.
There are, however, judicial officers who feel they have been truly judicious and balanced in choosing cases to award death sentence. "In my 28 year service, nine years of which as sessions judge having power to impose capital punishment, I have not exercised the option even once. Not that I am against death punishment. I have not yet come across that 'rarest of rare case'. We are responsible people. I will not hesitate to award death penalty if acase deserves," a sessions judge told The Times of India.
He says the death penalty should remain in the statute book, to be invoked in deserving cases. "Even if it is not used even once, it will instill a sense of fear in habitual offenders and act as deterrence," he says. Incidentally, the Vellore central prison, where the three condemned prisoners involved in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case are lodged, has a total of six death row convicts and 290 life convicts. A tell-tale evidence that extreme judicial restraint is being exercised before noose is put around a person's neck.
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Grey-area-between-life-and-death/articleshow/9805450.cms
Times of India
TNN | Aug 31, 2011, 08.10AM IST
Monday, May 25, 2009
Article by Death row inmate
This a piece written by yet another inmate on death row...We seriously hope that the system changes
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