Death Sentence And Criminal Justice In Human Rights Perspective (By Dr.S.Krishnan & Ms. Priya Rathore)
Death as a penalty has plagued human
mind perennially. Death sentence must
fulfil the conditions for protection of human rights in Criminal Justice
Administration in India. In European countries the agitation against capital
punishment started with criminologists Jeremy Bentham and J.S. Mill’s writings
for due punishment; who maintained that punishment must be just, adequate,
fair, reasonable and proportionate to the crime to achieve the goal and should
never be excessive. This is also a problem in Indian socio-legal system. Delay
in execution is not infrequent which is a violation of accused’s basic human
rights including right to live with dignity which is enshrined under article 21
of the Indian Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The
accused in death sentence who is waiting for execution of punishment is living
with terror of death every moment he is waiting for. Delay in execution is
another punishment on him which is inhuman, degrading and must not be allowed
in any civilised society.
Execution of Dhananjay Chatterjee[1] in
2004, after fourteen years in death cell and thereafter in the year 2006 Md.
Afzal’s instance of capital punishment again gave new impetus to the debate
between abolitionists and retentionists concerning speedy justice, fair trial,
protection of human rights of the persons under death sentence, their human
dignity as well as the victimological perspective to maintain law and order in
society.
In India the issue of death sentence
is hotly debated and has attracted the attention of general public as well as
government and non-governmental organisations. Though India is an active member
of the United Nations and has signed and ratified most of the International
Instruments on human rights, capital punishment still remains in our statute
book. According to our judiciary it must be imposed in exceptional cases i.e.
in rarest of rare cases with special
reasons. Article 72 of the Indian constitution confers on the President power
to grant pardons etc. and to suspend, remit or commute sentences in certain
circumstances.
In the words of P.N. Bhagwati, J. in
Bachan Singh v. state of Punjab[2] “the judges have been awarding
death penalty according to their own scale of values and social philosophy and
it is not possible to discern any consistent approach to the problem in the
judicial decisions”. Therefore, whether the sentence will be for death or
for life imprisonment depends, in a large measure, on the court or composition
of bench of the court. We have seen earlier about execution and commutation of
death sentences into life imprisonment, there are several judgments which show
that there are no fix principles to determine delay and other factors in the
similar cases. Even in Dhananjay Chatterjee’s case[3]
there was fourteen years’ delay in execution of death sentence but it was not
commuted to life imprisonment although in some earlier cases two years, two and
half years, three years and nine years delay in execution was treated as
violation of human rights and fair procedure and their sentences were commuted
to life imprisonment. Is this not a violation of articles 14 and 21 of the
Constitution which enshrine fundamental and sacrosanct rights of human beings?
Due to arbitrary and discriminatory
decisions and unjust procedures, basic rights of accused are violated in
inhuman and brutal manner which are not only contrary to the National Human
Rights principles envisaged in the Constitution but also contrary to the
Universal Human Rights ethos. In order to serve as a just and effective
mechanism for administration of justice to all sections of society, law should
be nourished by and nurtured in human rights. There is nothing to prove the
fact that extreme measure of death sentence reduces crime rates in contemporary
society; rather death sentence has failed as a deterrent. Life imprisonment is
enough for deterrence as well as for mental and moral metamorphosis of a human
being.