No tooth for tooth!!! No blood for blood!!!

Abolish Death Sentence!!!





The Supreme Court’s ruling that a death sentence cannot be commuted to life imprisonment because of a delay in execution in Bhullar case is very unfortunate. The Supreme Court’s verdict is based on the erroneous view that death penalty deters crime. In the exercise of the power to act on clemency petitions, the President does not have any individual discretion but has to act on the advice of the governments and hence obviously, any inordinate delay or rejection of mercy plea is based on political and other considerations. The founding father of the Constitution Dr.Ambedkar thought that this power would be abused and said, “After all this country by and large believes in the principles of non-violence, It has been its ancient tradition, and although people may not be following in actual practice, they certainly adhere to the principle of non-violence as a moral mandate which they ought to observe as far as they possibly can and I think that having regard to this fact, the proper thing for this county to do is to abolish the death sentence altogether”.


The Hindu's Editorial says, "In declining to interfere with the President’s rejection of the clemency petition of Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, the Supreme Court has lost an opportunity to invoke the sound legal principle that prolonged delay in disposal of mercy petitions could be a key ground for commuting the death penalty. Although a 1989 Constitution Bench in the Triveniben case had leaned towards the view that there could be no hard and fast rule on what constitutes a delay so unacceptable that a death sentence should be converted to one of life, it did note that “the only delay which would be material for consideration will be the delay in disposal of the mercy petitions or delays occurring at the instance of the executive.” Since the President took over eight years to dispose of Bhullar’s mercy plea, this was surely a fit case for the Supreme Court to exercise judicial discretion in favour of commutation."

The death penalty is an archaic, barbaric, and outdated institution that Indians are increasingly coming to despise. The irreversible consequence is clear: there are no means of redress for those condemned who have actually been killed by the state. People are realizing the irony of killing people as a punishment for murder, and understanding that a civilized society cannot condone the murder of its own citizens. Death penalty satisfies only the base, barbaric instinct of retribution. The death penalty should be strictly abolished in India in law and practice. Punishment should be given to a criminal but taking somebody’s life is against the ethos of a civilised and cultured society. Our present laws are based on old dictum – tooth for tooth and eye for eye. Death penalty is an attack on basic human rights as it is not a remedy for the crime committed. Nothing can be moral or good if a single individual has to be sacrificed to gain it. None can compensate him for the deprivation of his natural rights – life. More than two-third of the countries in the world have abolished death penalty and the rest are considering a moratorium on death penalty. The Supreme Court is duty bound to debate and think over this vital need to abolish death sentence.