Essay on Crusade Against Capital Punishment in India !
The current wave of reformation in the field of criminal justice system has inspired Parliamentarians in India to launch a crusade against capital punishment. They have been constantly struggling to repeal the provisions relating to death sentence from the Penal Code for the past several years.
The first proposal on this issue was tabled in Lok Sabha in 1949 but it was subsequently withdrawn at the instance of the then Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel who characterised it as the most unopportune proposal. The matter came up for debate again in Rajya Sabha in 1958 but it again met the same fate.
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The subject was, however, accepted for discussion in Rajya Sabha in 1962 but the general opinion of the House favoured retention of death penalty realising that time had not yet come when its repeal from the statute book could be justified. Consequently, the proposal was dropped.
The retentionists in the House opposed abolition of death sentence on the ground that its retention in the Statute Book acted as an effective deterrent for hardened and habitual murderers and dangerous criminals whose elimination from the society was inevitable. The members also pleaded that the Government was already lenient in commuting death sentence to that of life imprisonment wherever it was possible.
The question of abolition of death sentence was considered at length in a seminar on “Capital Punishment in India” which was largely attended by number of eminent jurists, judges, academic lawyers, legislators etc. The consensus was in favour of retention of capital punishment in view of the deteriorating law and order situation in the country.
Those who advocated abolition of death penalty, however, suggested that it shall be a befitting tribute to the memory of late Mahatma Gandhi if death penalty is abolished in. India at the occasion of Gandhi Centenary celebrations in that year.
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But the retentionists argued that the cause of non-violence is equally served if the causes of explicit violence regardless of ideals involved are visited with implicit violence of capital punishment and stressed on its application in such a manner that its harshness is mitigated but efficiency retained.
The Report of the Convention of International Congress of Criminal Law which was held in New Delhi on 8, 9 and 10th February, 1982 concluded that the general consensus was clearly in favour of retention of death penalty though its use may to be restricted to “rarest of rare cases”. Despite strong plea for abolition by Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer, the former Judge of the Supreme Court of India., the convention justified retention of capital punishment, though to be used sparingly.
Inaugurating the Congress, Mr. M. Hidayatullah, the then Vice-President of India and former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India, observed that the doctrine of “rarest of rare case” evolved in the Indian jurisprudence for the use of death penalty is capable of discounting the possible errors and abuse of this sanction and therefore, a dispassionate approach to this problem in the context of the mounting crime was most necessary.
This mid-way approach seems to be most appropriate particularly in the context of modern Indian society where the machinery of police as well as the magistracy is hardly adequate to tackle the problem of crime and criminals effectively. The object of punishment should be achieved by extending necessary safeguards to life and property of persons but at the same time by limiting their liberty so as to eliminate crime.