The Death Penalty Debate:
This morning a
convict was executed after he was given all fair options to exhaust all legal
avenues of escaping the gallows till the final minutes. This case was especially
widely reported by media in the last few weeks after it became public that the
convict was induced to surrender which ought to be considered as mitigating
circumstances to his execution. Snuffing out life from any living being is sad, be
it of a convict or those hundreds of innocent victims on whom the convict
unleashed diabolic violence. Worldwide, more than 90 countries have abolished
death penalty; however it is part of the statute in India presently.
If the
mitigating circumstances, as disclosed recently by a dead top sleuth are true,
then it calls for a serious consideration of plea bargain in Indian
jurisprudence. In many other democracies, plea bargain is resorted to secure arrest
& conviction of other co-conspirators in lieu of a lighter sentence to the
plea bargainer. Plea bargain ensures that more number of criminals are
apprehended and the society is all the more safer. ‘Plea Bargaining’ can be defined
as pre-trial negotiations between the accused and the prosecution during which
the accused agrees to plead guilty in exchange for certain concessions by the
prosecution. Since 2005, it is part of
Indian law, but the present convict was tried under in different times when plea bargain
provision didn not exist.
The Judicial
reforms committee headed by Justice V.S. Malimath had the task of examining the
fundamental principles of criminal law so as to restore confidence in the
criminal justice system in India by reviewing the Code of Criminal Procedure
(CrPC), 1973, the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, and the Indian Penal Code (IPC),
1860. It began its work in November 2000 & submitted its report in 2003.
The 158
recommendations of the committee, arrived at after examining several national
systems of criminal law, especially the continental European systems,
essentially propose a shift from an adversarial criminal justice system, where
the respective versions of the facts are presented by the prosecution and the
defence before a neutral judge, to an inquisitorial system, where the objective
is the "quest for truth" and the judicial officer controls the
investigation of offences.
However, in the
present case, prosecution was well within its right to secure maximum
conviction in the absence of such a plea bargain provision. To apprehend a perpetrator
of a crime by whatever means is the legitimate job of security agencies and
they did exactly this.
News reports are
also suggesting that Rajya Sabha may debate the pros & cons of death
penalty today. The benefits or otherwise of death penalty on the crime rate in
a society is not a settled argument as yet. On one hand, the rising crime graph
in India over the past decades in spite of death penalty reflects that capital punishment
is not having its desired deterrent effect on the society. On the other hand,
if such a strong deterrent is absent, who knows how much more heinous crimes
the criminals would resort to.
The advocates
against capital punishment miss the point that keeping alive a proven heinous
criminal at the expense of people perpetually in jail also is a travesty of
justice, more so towards those victims who are denied a bona fide closure to
their trauma. Awarding of capital punishment on the other hand opens the debate
of bloodthirst in a civilized society and the right of any human being
howsoever bad, towards a fair chance to remorse and reform.
Considering the
above two possibilities, and also the fact that world over, capital punishment
is being abolished over the years in other societies as being a inhumane way of
dispensing justice, our lawmakers would do well to dwell on a third option in
the meantime. Without abolishing capital punishment, it can be considered to
give an option to the convicted to donate his eyes, voluntarily go blind and be
on parole. The capital punishment is not
revoked, rather deferred based on the good conduct of the now blind convict on
parole. The convict can always choose gallows to blindness in which case his
wish would be carried out.
Our lawmakers
and civil society can consider this issue and the debate can even come up with
better ways to dispense due and fair justice in an evolving yet civilized
society like India.
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