THE CONTEXT: With 561 prisoners on death row at the end of 2023, India’s death row population has continued to rise to reach its highest-ever numbers since 2004. In an unprecedented trend, the Supreme Court of India acquitted nearly 55% of the death row prisoners in the cases it heard in 2023. However, Death penalty sentencing reform initiated by the Supreme Court of India has failed to percolate to trial courts.
ISSUES:
- Failed attempt of Apex court: The Supreme Court convened a Constitution Bench in September 2022 to reform death penalty However, given the continued evidence of the broken state of sentencing in India’s courts, the potential of this Bench to rectify things appears uncertain.
- Issue faced by trial courts: Data from Project 39A’s 2023 annual statistics on the death penalty show that the Court’s attempts to reform sentencing through its directions in Manoj vs The State Of Madhya Pradesh(May 2022) have failed to trickle down to trial courts. In 2023, trial courts imposed 86.96% of death sentences in the absence of information pertaining to the accused.
- Reluctance of high court: Additionally, the High Courts continued their reluctance in confirming death sentences in 2023. Death Penalty India Report (2016) states that ultimately, 4.9% of the death sentences imposed by trial courts between 2000-15 were confirmed at the appellate level.
- Dominance of acquittals: The major feature of the year 2023 is the dominance of acquittals in the Court’s death penalty decisions. Despite comprising a smaller proportion of death cases at the Court in previous years, these decisions underscore systemic failures by the police, prosecution, and trial courts. Acquittals have been outcomes of fabricated evidence, manipulated first information reports, the possibility of tampered forensic evidence and dubious recoveries of incriminating evidence by the police.
- Not acknowledging the systemic problems: The Court has confined itself to case-specific in acquittal decisions, without acknowledging systemic problems within which the death penalty is being administered.
- State of the prisoners: Death row prisoners live in constant distress due to an ever-looming fear of execution. They are subjected to constant violence, ridicule and humiliation within prisons. Prison policies segregating them from work, education and leisure remove the little means available for them to cope under such dehumanising circumstances. The death row experience comes with life-long psychological ramifications, which continue well after a prisoner has been acquitted or commuted.
- Disparities in justice delivery: According to the national figures, 74.1% of the prisoners sentenced to death in India are economically vulnerable according to their occupation and landholding.
ANALYSIS OF DEATH PENALTY
- Ambiguity of rarest of the rare cases:In Jagmohan Singh vs State of Uttar Pradesh (1973) the Supreme Court affirmed the constitutional validity of the death penalty and should be awarded only in the “rarest of rare” cases. However, the judgments do not provide a clue as to what constitutes the ‘rarest of the rare cases.
- No evidence of its effectiveness:Research on the subject has repeatedly been unable to produce solid proof that the death penalty works any better than other forms of punishment at deterring crime.
- Extensive delay in execution:A long delay of the death penalty’s execution serves no purpose. It is violative of Article 21 which leads to demand of its substitution by the sentence of life-imprisonment.
- Moral Grounds:By allowing death penalty morally nothing is achieved except more death, suffering and pain. If the social values really mean that killing is wrong, then the society must abolish death penalty. Death penalty legitimizes an irreversible act of violence by the state.
THE WAY FORWARD:
- Need for holistic legislative reforms: There is a need for a holistic legislative reform that aims to address individual liberties. Prisoners should be provided with better facilities than convicts, including food, clothing, water, medical facilities, sanitation, recreation and communication with relatives and lawyers.
- Reformative approach:There is a need for reformative approach in criminal justice system with measures as police reforms, witness protection scheme and victim compensation scheme to prevent lapses and error in granting of capital punishment. Supreme Court has also taken the view that “Reformative approach to ‘punishment should be the object of criminal law”.
- Exploring alternatives for death penalty: There is a need for other alternatives to the death penalty such as life imprisonment without parole. Also, the Law Commission of India in its 262nd Report, 2015 recommended that death penalty be abolished for all crimes other than terrorism related offences and waging war.
- Reform in trial proceedings: There is a need to ensure transparency in trial proceedings by adequate legal representation to the accused, timely disclosure of evidence, and transparent decision-making process. The emphasis should be on reducing undertrial population, by implementing the amended statutory provisions, judicial decisions regarding rights of undertrials, arrests and grant of bails, and the recommendations of various committees on prison reforms.
THE CONCLUSION:
The high rate of acquittals with a skyrocketing death row population must compel the Court to consider the reform in criminal justice system for capital punishment. In this context, there is a need to reform police and judicial system to fast-track trials to reinforce the faith of the public in our legal system.
UPSC PREVIOUS YEAR QUESTIONS
Q. Instances of President’s delay in commuting death sentences has come under public debate as denial of justice. Should there be a time limit specified for the President to accept/reject such petitions? Analyse. (2014)
MAINS PRACTICE QUESTIONS
Q.1 “Capital sentence visits those without capital”. Discuss the statement in the context of death penalty jurisprudence in India.
SOURCE: https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/indias-burgeoning-death-penalty-crisis/article67904333.ece
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