The
Law Commission of India is to hold a one-day consultation on the death penalty
on the coming Saturday i.e. 11th July, 2015 at the India Habitat
Centre in New Delhi. Inaugurated by Shri Gopal Krishna Gandhi, the consultation
will bring together a select group of leading figures in the judiciary, the
bar, academia, media, and political and public life, to debate and discuss
various aspects of the death penalty. In order to facilitate comprehensive
deliberations, the consultation is organized as a roundtable and all
participants will attend the event throughout the day. Each session will begin
with short remarks by invited speakers. The floor will then be open for inputs
from all participants. Besides leading figures from Indian society, the
consultation will be attended by Professor Roger Hood, Professor Emeritus of
Criminology and Research Associate, Centre for Criminology, University of
Oxford.
Four
key themes will be discussed at the consultation, as follows:
1. Arbitrariness
and Discrimination: Is the death penalty applied arbitrarily? How
can this be avoided or removed? Does the death penalty discriminate against
marginalized and vulnerable people?
2. State of the
Criminal Justice System: What are the challenges faced by the criminal
justice system, including the police, investigation processes, the judiciary
and jail systems? How can the system be improved to allow for fair, impartial,
and error-free application of the death penalty?
3. The
Penological Purpose(s) of the Death Penalty: What purpose does the
death penalty serve? What alternatives can replace the death penalty to serve
the same purpose?
4. The Way
Forward: Retention, Reform, Abolition: Should the death
penalty be retained in its present or modified form, in view of India’s
constitutional and international legal commitments?
The
participants for the consultation will represent stakeholders from all walks of
society. These include distinguished judges, Justice (retd.) Prabha Sridevan,
Justice (retd.) SB Sinha, Justice (retd.) Hosbet Suresh, Justice (retd.) K
Chandru and Justice (retd.) Rajinder Sachar. Political leaders such as Brinda
Karat, Manish Tewari, Shashi Tharoor, Majeed Memon, Kanimozhi, Varun Gandhi,
and Aashish Khetan will be present. Former Chief Information Commissioner
Wajahat Habibullah will also participate, as will social activist Usha
Ramanathan. Sitting and former police officers such as Julio Ribeiro, DR
Karthikeyan, Sankar Sen, PM Nair, Chaman Lal and Meeran C Borwankar will
attend. Participating lawyers include KTS Tulsi, TR Andhyarujina, Yug Chaudhry,
Sanjay Hegde, Colin Gonsalves and Dushyant Dave. NGOs working in the field will
also be represented, such as ACHR, SAHRDC, and CHRI. Leading mediapersons will
also be present, including Manoj Mitta, Siddharth Varadarajan, V Venkatesan,
Praveen Swami, and Rajdeep Sardesai.
A
day before the consultation i.e. tomorrow evening 10th July, 2015 ,
the Law Commission will host a lecture by Professor Roger Hood at the India
International Centre, New Delhi. Professor Hood is presently Professor Emeritus
of Criminology, University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow, All Souls College,
Oxford. He will speak on the “Universal Abolition of the Death Penalty: A Human
Rights Imperative.” Professor Hood will also participate in the consultation.
It
may be noted that the Supreme Court in Santosh Kumar Satishbhushan Bariyar
v. Maharashtra and Shankar Kisanrao Khade v. Maharashtra, had
suggested that the Law Commission should study the death penalty in India to
“allow for an up-to-date and informed discussion and debate on the subject.” In
May 2014, the Commission invited public comments on the subject by issuing a
consultation paper. The one-day consultation is being held further to the
comments received in response to that paper, and the views set forth during the
consultation will aid the Commission in formulating its Report on the issue.
The
present law of the death penalty was laid down in Bachan Singh v. UOI
(1980), when the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the penalty.
However, the Court confined its application to the rarest of rare cases, to
reduce the arbitrariness of the penalty. In arriving at its decision in that
case, the Court had relied on the 35th Report of the Law Commission, previous
decisions from India and elsewhere, and contemporary scholarship.
The
35th Report of the Law Commission, which the Court relied upon in Bachan
Singh, also needs to be re-visited, especially since it was submitted in
1967, and thus did not account for the over-hauling of the death penalty
framework in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, as well as other changes in
India’s socio-political and legal landscape.
The
legal landscape has also transformed in the 35 years since Bachan Singh.
In 1980, when Bachan Singh was decided, only 18 countries had abolished
the death penalty for all offences. Since then, about two-thirds of the world
has abolished the death penalty in law or in practice. 98 countries have
abolished the death penalty for all offences, seven have abolished the death
penalty for ordinary crimes, and 35 others have imposed an effective moratorium
against the death penalty. In international criminal law, the death penalty has
been abolished for even the most grave and heinous offences, such as genocide,
crimes against humanity and war crimes.
In
recent cases, the Supreme Court has recognized that despite the “rarest of
rare” doctrine, the death penalty continues to be applied arbitrarily. In Santosh
Bariyar v. State of Maharashtra (2009), the Supreme Court recognized that
the penalty was wrongly imposed on at least 15 persons. In Sangeet v. State
of Maharashtra (2013), the Court admitted that the penalty was wrongly
imposed in 5 other cases, adding that it was unable to decide whether the case
was fit for imposing the death penalty due to uncertainties in India’s death
penalty jurisprudence. Advances in empirical research, particularly in
countries where the death penalty has been abolished, have also disputed the
supposed deterrent effect of the death penalty.
These
changes in India and elsewhere make it an opportune moment to revisit questions
of the constitutionality and desirability of the death penalty.
*******
(Release ID :123107)
Source: Press Information Bureau (PIB)
No comments:
Post a Comment