Context:

• This article is based on an Editorial “Life over death: On death penalty abolition and parliamentary panel report” which was published in the Hindu. Recently, the Parliamentary Committee that examined the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), the proposed criminal statute likely to replace the Indian Penal Code (IPC), has not made a recommendation to abolish the death penalty in India.

What concerns are associated with the death penalty in India?

• Discretion of the Government: Despite submissions from experts and jurists on the abolition of the death penalty in India, the standing committee on Home Affairs said that the matter may be left for the government to consider. 
• Limited Observation: A remark that it “has understood that the reason for a passionate argument against the death penalty in India is that the judicial system can be fallible and to prevent an innocent person from being wrongly sentenced to death”. 

Demand for Abolition of Death Penalty in India

• Not Favored by the Apex Court: As per domain experts, statistical trends showed that the Supreme Court of India is leaning away from capital punishment.
  • Few in Number: The Court awarded the death penalty to only seven people from 2007 to 2022, while all death penalties in India were either set aside or commuted to life in 2023.
    • As they did not fall under the “rarest of rare cases”.
      • There is no statutory definition of ‘rarest of rare’. It depends upon the facts and circumstances of a particular case, the brutality of the crime, the conduct of the offender, previous history of his/her involvement in crime, and chances of improving and combining him/her into the death penalty has always been a disputable issue all over the world.
• No Deterrence: Social scientists have demonstrated that the death penalty in India has no deterrent effect and that global opinion is in favor of its abolition. 
• Scope for Reform: Rather than the death penalty, imprisonment for the remainder of the convict’s natural life will be a more rigorous punishment and provide scope for reform.  

The Path Ahead

• Life Imprisonment as an Alternative: The BNS has defined ‘life imprisonment’ as a term for the remainder of one’s natural life, and this should be the default alternative to death sentences. 
• Option for Remission: Remission should be a humanitarian act and never a source of political controversy. Removing capital punishment from the statute book and introducing a rational and universal remission policy will be a substantive reform in the justice system.
  • The case for the abolition of the death penalty in India will gain strength if the trend of seeking the premature release of life convicts on political grounds is arrested and life terms without remission become more common. 

Conclusion:

The parliamentary committee’s reluctance to recommend the abolition of the death penalty in India raises concerns about the discretionary power of the government, while the path ahead suggests embracing life imprisonment as a more humane and reformative alternative, coupled with a rational remission policy for substantive justice system reform.

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