Death penalty contradicts the core objectives of the criminal justice system.

The core principles of criminal justice system is to deliver justice for all by convicting and
punishing the guilty for his/her offences and helping them stop offending while protecting the
innocent. In other words the central purpose of criminal justice system is to deliver efficient,
effective and fair justice to the general public. The whole idea of justice is not to punish a person
but to provide him sufficient time to reinvent himself and live the rest of his life by positively
contributing to the society. Thus, judiciary or justice systems around the world are meant to make
people a civilized way of living.

The debate of over death penalty in India are decades old. As per the Indian penal code
act 1860 only two crimes are to be given Death penalty viz for murder ( Sec. 302) and
waging war against the state. Hence the justice system in India allows for death sentence for
crimes committed under these two categories. The supreme court of India has time and against
validated the relevance and importance of death penalty with some checks and balances.

But the real question here is whether this barbaric act adheres to the norms of a civilized
and progressive society? The answer will be a big NO. There is no place for barbarism in
modern civilized society. The famous Italian jurist Cesare Beccaria in his paper An essay on
crimes and punishment has made some sparkling points with regards to death penalty. He
coined two important concepts on this. One the objective of the death penalty is to deter future
commission of crimes and to reform the offender. The first among these objectives has not
achieved as of now and the latter is not achievable at all.

The greater question here is whether there is any of empirical evidence to suggest or/
rather prove the mandate for death penalty? As of now, there is no proven evidence to suggest
that Death penalty can be an effective deterrent in curbing/reducing any of the crimes anywhere
in the world. Statistics do suggest that the crime rates in states where there are no death penalties
is lower than that of those having it though on a smaller margin.
It has been shown that in USA where the level of crimes is lower in states where the capital
punishment is not a mode of punishment. If we take the case of India where we have capital
punishments since our independence suggest the same thing. The crimes rates never reduced in
our country. It shows a level of increasing trend in the last two decades especially the number of
heinous crimes are on all time high recently.

The SC, in the Bactchan Singh VS State of Punjab, has made some check and balances
by bringing the concept of Rarest of the Rare while awarding capital punishment. But, the SC
has not proscribed what should be and what ought to be the Rarest of Rare cases. It simply left
it to the wisdom of judges .In such cases, we can say that that judgment will subject to the
benches which the case goes for hearing. This leaves the chances for subjective and prejudiced
judgments which are clearly against the principle of equality which is enshrined in our
constitution.

The other issue includes the delay in justice delivery system. As told by Krishna Ayer
Justice delayed is justice denied. More than a dozen cases mercy petitions are pending before
the president. And also there are lots of cases pending before various judges awaiting judgments.
In the recent past the case of Perarivalan and 2 others where the clemency petition was
dishonored by the president after 11 years. Isnt a humanitarian approach where these convicts
have to undergo mental trauma for the past 11 years? Not only them but their family too
underwent the same level of agony in all these time.

The other issue is related to error in the pronouncement of capital punishment by the
higher judiciary. As mentioned earlier SC s in the 1983 case where it brought the concept of
Rarest of the rare concept has much flaws than merits. In 2012 justice S.B. Sinha and Cyriac
joseph retired SC judges has said that there were errors in the judgments of theirs in awarding
death sentence to 13 people. Out of the 13 convicts, 2 were already hanged in the due course.
They have asked president to look into the matter at the earliest so that any more error may not
be committed. It implies the concept of irrecoverability.

Once a life is taken away it is taken away forever and nobody can give back at any time. And if
such open admissions of judges continue abated automatically this will lead to a situation where
people will take law in their hands an of our democracy.
Nobody in this world is a born criminal. It is the circumstances and the society makes
them so. So nobody can ever escape from by simply blaming the criminals. The greater question
here is about how to transform the society to be more civilized and and pragmatic??? As rightly
pointed out by great father of our nation Mahatma Gandhi An eye for an eye makes the whole
world blind.

NAME : SANDEEP.A
REFERENCE : THE HINDU, WIKIPEDIA