capital punishment in india

7/28/2019 Capital Punishment in India

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Capital punishment in India

Capital punishment is a legal but rarely carried outsentence inIndia. Imposition of the penalty is not always followedby execution (even when it is upheld on appeal), because of thepossibility of commutation to life imprisonment.

[1]In recent times

there has been numerous gaps; between the hanging of onAutoShankarin 1995 andDhananjoy Chatterjeein 2004, and

thereafter until the execution ofAjmal Kasabin 2012 andAfzalGuruin 2013.

As of 11 February 2013, there are 476 convicts on death row inIndia. States with the maximum number of prisoners on death roware Uttar Pradesh (174), Karnataka (61), Maharashtra (50) and

Bihar (37).

Law

TheSupreme Court of Indiaruled in 1983 that the death penaltyshould be imposed only in "the rarest of rare cases."

[4]Crimes

which are punishable by death sentence aremurder, gangrobbery with murder, abetting thesuicideof a childorinsaneperson, waging war against the nation, andabettingmutinyby a member of thearmed forces.

[4]In 1989,
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theNarcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Actwaspassed which applied mandatory death penalty for a secondoffence of "large scale narcotics trafficking". On 16 June 2011,theBombay High Courtruled that Section 31A of the NDPS Act,

which imposed mandatory sentence, violated Article 21 (Right toLife) of theConstitutionand that a second conviction need not bea death penalty, giving judges discretion to decide about awardingcapital punishment. In recent years, the death penalty has beenimposed under newanti-terrorism legislationforpeopleconvictedofterrorist activities.

India's apex court has recommended the death penalty beextended to those found guilty of committing "honour killings" with

the Supreme Court stating that honour killings fall within the"rarest of the rare" category and deserves to be a capitalcrime. The Supreme Court also recommended death sentencesto be awarded to those police officials who commitpolicebrutalityin the form ofencounter killings.

On 3 February 2013, in response to public outcry over abrutalgang rape in Delhi, the Indian Government passed an ordinancewhich applied the death penalty in cases of rape that leads to

death or leaves the victim in a "persistent vegetative state".

In December 2007, India voted against aUnited Nations GeneralAssembly resolutioncalling for amoratoriumon the deathpenalty. In November 2012, India again upheld its stance oncapital punishment by voting against the UN General Assemblydraft resolution seeking to ban death penalty
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Method

In India the death penalty is carried out byhanging. An attempt tochallenge this method of execution failed in the Supreme Court,

which stated in its 1983 judgement that hanging did not involvetorture, barbarity, humiliation or degradation.

Appeal

Once sentenced, a defendant has the right to appeal against thesentence as well as the conviction. The appeal will be heard by ahigher court and can go all the way up to the Supreme Court, aprocess that can take two to three years. If all fails,thePresidentcan be approached to grant clemency - somethinghe can do only after seeking the advice of theIndiancabinet. There is no definite time period in which the presidenthas to make a decision. This has led to large delays in somecases, with convicts remaining ondeath rowfor several years.
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History

Between 1975 and 1991, about 40 people were executed. Thenumber of people executed in Indiasinceindependence in 1947

is a matter of dispute; official government statistics claim that only52 people had been executed since independence. However,thePeople's Union for Civil Libertiescited information from

Appendix 34 of the 1967Law Commission of Indiareport showingthat 1,422 executions took place in 16Indian statesfrom 1953 to1963, and has suggested that the total number of executionssince independence may be as high as 3,000 to 4,300. At least100 people in 2007, 40 in 2006, 77 in 2005, 23 in 2002, and 33 in2001 were sentenced to death (but not executed), accordingtoAmnesty Internationalfigures. No official statistics of thosesentenced to death have been released.

On 27 April 1995,Auto Shankarwas hanged inSalem, TamilNadu.

About 26 mercy petitions are pending before the president, someof them from 1992. These include those ofKhalistan LiberationForceterrorist Davinder Singh Bhullar, the cases of slain forest

brigandVeerappan's four associatesSimon, Gnanprakasham,Meesekar Madaiah and Bilvendranfor killing 21 policemen in1993; and one Praveen Kumar for killing four members of hisfamily in Mangalore in 1994

Afzal Guruwas convicted ofconspiracyin connection withthe2001 Indian Parliament attackand was sentenced to death.The Supreme Court of India upheld the sentence, ruling that theattack "shocked the conscience of the society at large." Afzal was

scheduled to be executed on 20 October 2006, but the sentencewas stayed.Afzal Guruwas hanged to death on February 9, 2013at Delhi's Tihar Jail.

On 3 May 2010, a Mumbai Special Court convictedMohammadAjmal Kasabof murder, waging war on India, possessingexplosives, and other charges. On 6 May 2010, the same trial
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court sentenced him to death on four counts and to a lifesentence on five other counts. Kasab has been sentenced todeath forattacking Mumbai and killing 166 people on 26November 2008along with nine Pakistani terrorists. He was found

guilty of 80 offences, including waging war against the nation,which is punishable by the death penalty.Kasab's death sentencewas upheld by theBombay High Courton 21 February 2011 andby the Supreme Court on 29 August 2012. On 21 November2012, Kasab was hanged in theYerwada Central JailinPune. Hismercy plea was rejected by the president on 5 November and thesame was communicated to him on 12 November. The events ofhis hanging were shrouded in secrecy.

On 5 March 2012, asessions courtinChandigarhordered theexecution ofBalwant Singh Rajoana, a terrorist fromBabbarKhalsa, convicted for his involvement in the assassinationPunjabChief MinisterBeant Singh. The sentence was to be carried outon 31 March 2012 inPatialaCentral Jail, but the Centre stayedthe execution on 28 March due to worldwide protests by Sikhsthat the execution was unfair and amounted to a human rightsviolation.

On 13 March 2012, a court inSirsa, Haryana, condemned todeath the 22-year-old Nikka Singh for raping a 75-year-oldwoman and later murdering her by gagging her mouth with ashawl and strangling her neck with her salwar on 11 February2011. "The imposition of the death sentence was mostappropriate in this case. The court has held that it was a cold-blooded murder and where rape was committed on an innocentand hapless old woman," said Neelima Shangla, the Sirsa

additional district and sessions judge. "The rape and cold-bloodedmurder of a woman, who was of grandmothers age of theaccused, falls in the rarest of the rare case." The court held thatNikka Singh was a "savage" whose "existence on earth was agrave danger to society" as he had also attempted to rape twoother village women.
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In June 2012, it became known that Indian president PratibhaPatil near the end of her five-year term as president commutedthe death sentence of as many as 35 convicts to life, includingfour on the same day (2 June), which created a storm of

protest. This caused further embarrassment to the governmentwhen it came to light that one of these convicts, Bandu BaburaoTidkeconvicted for the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girlhad already died five years previously from HIV

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