I support the death penalty because I believe , if administered swiftly and justly , capital punishment is a deterrent against future violence and will save other innocent lives
-George W. Bush
Introduction
Capital Punishment is a government officially approved practice where a person is being given the death penalty by the state government as punishment for the crime done by him. It is also known as the Death Penalty. Crimes that results in death Capital punishment are known as capital crimes or capital offences.
Earlier, Capital Punishment was been practised by many of the societies as a penalty for the wrongdoers. Today 36 countries are still practising this punishment for several acts done by the criminals, whereas 103 countries have totally abolished the use of capital punishment for any type of offences. All the countries prohibit the use of this punishment for taking of lives of the individuals who are below the age of 18 years.
Capital Punishment in India
India continues to have the use of Capital Punishment for a few serious offences . The Supreme Court has approved the use of Capital Punishment to be carried out in four instances since 1995.
In Mithu vs. State of Punjab , it was held that Section-303 of Indian Penal Court provided for compulsory putting to death for criminals already serving a life sentence. Also Article 21 of the Constitution of India states that “no person shall be deprived of his life and liberty except to the procedure established by the law”.
According to Supreme Court of India, Capital Penalty should only be imposed in “rarest of the rare cases”. Also Supreme Court, provides for the Capital Punishment on police officials who commits police brutality like Encounter killings for promotional purposes .
Constitutional Validity Of Capital Punishment
Many countries has excepted to abolish the use of Capital Punishment for any crime. Two former judges of Supreme Court of India , Bhagwati J. and Krishna Iyer J. along with many social workers and lawyers have expressed themselves in favor of abolition of Capital Punishment in India. In order to take away the life of a person who has committed an offence must be having knowledge with the procedure established by the law. By the way of directions given by the respected courts , this procedure should be mean, fair, just an reasonable one .
Though the constitutional validity of the capital punishment was violating Article 19 and 21 of our constitution because they didn’t provide any procedure to the court to check the validity of death sentence. But by the process by which the life is taken away is being fair, just and reasonable. The Judges have been given ample power to exercise their discretion to grant capital punishment as their imprisonment for life in the rarest of the rare cases only.
In the case of Ranjender Prasad vs. State of Uttar Pradesh, it was held that Death penalty provided by the court that directly effects the rights of the people granted by Article 21 of The Constitution of India . But it has already been provided by the law that there is nothing like Due process in Article 21 of The Constitution of India so it is considered as valid . It also stated that to impose Death Penalty, two things must be taken into consideration:
- For imposing capital punishment the special reasons must be recorded in that case.
- The capital punishment must be imposed in extraordinary and “rarest of the rare” circumstances .
Special Power of President
The special clemency powers of president and governors originated from the Government of India Act 1935 but they both does not have prerogative clemency powers .
According to Article 72(1) of The Constitution Of India states that the President have the power to grant pardons, reprieves, respites or remissions of punishment or to suspend, remit or commute the death penalty provided to the individual convicted of any offence.
This blog is written by Sarthak Batra, Fairfield Institute of Management & Technology.
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