Capital punishment in India

Capital punishment, death penalty or execution is punishment by death. The sentence is referred to as a death sentence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences.

Capital punishment : views in favour and Against Death Penalty 

 Capital punishment,death penalty or execution is punishment by death.

Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences.

Capital punishment is a matter of active controversy in various countries and states.

At the backdrop of hanging Yakub Memon , whether capital punishment should be banned or not , has become a topic of public debate in India.

Capital punishment in India : 

A statistical look According to a report of the Law Commission of India (1967), the total number of cases in which the sentence of death in India was executed from 1953 to 1963 was 1,410.

According to National Crime Record Bureau prison statistics report between 2004 and 2013, 1,303 capital-punishment verdicts have been delivered. However, only three convicts were executed over this period, one each in West Bengal (2004), Maharashtra (2012) and Delhi (2013).

India saw an execution-free period of seven years between 2004 and 2012. In addition, 3,751 death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment during this period between 2004 to 2012.

Recent Death Penalties :-

On 14 August 2004, Dhananjoy Chatterjee was hanged at Alipore Central Jail in West Bengal on his 42nd birthday, convicted for the rape and murder of a teenage girl.

On 21 November 2012, Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab the only terrorist to have survived the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, was hanged in Pune’s Yerwada Jail.

On 9 Februrary 2013, Mohammed Afzal Guru, a convict in the 2001 Parliament attack case was hanged inside Delhi’s Tihar jail.

On 30 july 2015, Yakub Abdul Razak Memon , a convict in 1993 mumbai bomb blasts was hanged.

Current status with regards to capital punishment in India: 

The Constitution Bench judgment of Supreme Court of India in Bachan Singh vs State of Punjab (1980) made it very clear that Capital punishment in India can be given only in rarest of rare cases.

Laws regarding capital punishment: 

Section 120B of IPC – Being a party to a criminal conspiracy to commit a capital offense.

Section 302, 303 of IPC – relating murder.

Section 305 of IPC – Abetting the suicide of a minor, mentally ill person, or intoxicated person.

Section 364A of IPC – Kidnapping, in the course of which the victim was held for ransom or other coercive purposes.

Section 31A of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act -Drug trafficking in cases of repeat offenses .

Section 396 of IPC – Banditry with murder – in cases where a group of five or more individuals commit banditry and one of them commits murder in the course of that crime, all members of the group are liable for the death penalty.

Section 376A of IPC and Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 – Rape, if the perpetrator inflicts injuries that result in the victim’s death or incapacitation in a persistent vegetative state, or is a repeat offender.

Points Favoring  abolition of death penalty in India: 

The death penalty is incompatible with human rights and human dignity:
The death penalty violates the right to life which happens to be the most basic of all human rights. It also violates the right not to be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment. Furthermore, the death penalty undermines human dignity which is inherent to every human being.

The death penalty does not deter crime effectively:
The death penalty lacks the deterrent effect which is commonly referred to by its advocates. As recently stated by the General Assembly of the United Nations, “there is no conclusive evidence of the deterrent value of the death penalty” .It is noteworthy that in many retentionist states, the effectiveness of the death penalty in order to prevent crime is being seriously questioned by a continuously increasing number of law enforcement professionals.

The arbitrary application of the death penalty can never be ruled out:
The death penalty is often used in a disproportional manner against the poor, minorities and members of racial, ethnic, political and religious groups.

Capital punishment scenario in different parts of the world: 

Among 198 united nations countries , 106 countries have completely abolished it for all crimes , 6 have abolished it for ordinary crimes only , 50 have not used it for last ten years and 36 countries are actively practicing capital punishment.

Nearly all countries in the world prohibit the execution of individuals who were under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes; since 2009, only Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan have carried out such executions. Executions of this kind are prohibited under international law.

In 2007, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution towards the abolition of capital punishment and the protection of human rights when it endorsed a call for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty.(India did not agree with the resolution).

 Way Forward:

 Democracy in India is evolving over the years. For a country like India with still divisive forces acting , continuation of death penalty is the need of the hour. However as time progress, Indian democracy and judiciary will evolve to eliminate death penalty in this country.