CAN CAPITAL PUNISHMENT EVER BE JUSTIFIED: A CRITICAL STUDY

Abstract

The debate of “should death sentence be allowed in modern world” is secondary aspect to be discussed in the context of Indian Criminal Justice system. The first and the foremost question relevant in the Indian Context is “Can Death Sentence Be Executed in India in Reality”. To our dismay, it’s quite difficulty at least procedurally (if not technically) to execute death sentence in India.  The concept of death sentence has been a subject matter of debate for long period of time in and across the world. Majority opinion of public is that death penalty must be abolished as it violates the Human Rights at large. Modern jurists are of the opinion that if killing is wrong, nothing can make it right either the legal or social sanction. If it is wrong for a man to kill another man, so it is even for the State to do. It is debated that death penalty has had no visible effect as a deterrent and has utterly failed to reduce the number of murders, which, accordingly makes the inflection of capital punishment completely useless. The accused in India under the safeguards of the Indian Criminal Justice system has lot of options to delay his execution after the apex court finds him guilty of offence, namely Review Petition, Curative Petition, Mercy Petition simultaneously to Governor and the President and then delay in disposing Mercy petition also gives him ground to commute his sentence. This article discusses this issue in detail.