Abolish death penalty

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Publication: The Times Of India Delhi;Date: May 11, 2013;Section: Times Nation;Page: 20

Abolish death penalty

Himanshi Dhawan | TNN New Delhi: In 1996, Bheru Singh, suspecting his wife of infidelity, killed her and their five children. The Supreme Court sentenced him to death. Two years later, Shaikh Ayub, found guilty of killing his wife and five children, was given life imprisonment by the SC.

In 2000, Suresh, convicted of sexually assaulting a oneand-a-half year old child was acquitted by the high court but the SC gave him life imprisonment. Five years later, Satish who was convicted of raping and murdering a six-year-old, was acquitted by the HC but handed death penalty by SC.

In 1975, Harbans Singh, Jeeta Singh and Kashmira Singh were convicted by the HC for murdering four people. Their appeals went to three separate SC benches with three different orders. While Jeeta Singh was handed a death sentence, Kashmira Singhs sentence was commuted and in Harbans Singhs case, the court recommended that the President commute his sentence. These examples of inconsistent orders not just in different levels of court but by different benches of the apex court have been used by anti-death campaigners to strengthen their campaign which has received greater attention following the flurry of mercy petitions cleared by President Pranab Mukherjee in the last 10 months. International and Indian NGOs, lawyers and human rights activists on Friday demanded that India abolish death penalty in keeping with international trends. Two-thirds of the world has abolished death penalty. Amnesty International and Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) analyzed SC judgments in death penalty cases between 1950-2006 to find that whether an accused got death as punishment depended on a range of subjective factors from quality of lawyers to the interest of the state or the personal views of the judge. Speaking on the issue, Amnesty Indias Shailesh Rai said peoples frustration with the impunity of the criminal justice system led them to believe that death penalty was a quick-fix solution. Human Rights Law Network director Colin Gonsalves agreed that the justice system was skewed heavily against the poor and vulnerable sections.

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11-05-2013 11:18