WHY IS DEATH PENALTY STILL A PUNISHMENT IN INDIA?

Abstract

The death penalty has been a very widely debated topic among the public in the recent years. Every time a gruesome crime takes place the entire nation cries for the accused to be hanged as soon as possible. The public has time and again demanded for faster trials and sentencing in these cases. However once we take a closer look into the judicial process and the lives of the accused during this process we would be able to get a better understanding of the horrors these convicts go through, I can assure you these horrors are much more punishing and tormenting than what awaits them at the gallows.  Whenever the constitutional validity of the death penalty is brought up it’s said this issue was dealt with in the landmark judgement of Bachan Singh vs State of Punjab. The following case was the first time the constitutional validity of the death penalty was questioned. It was held that the death penalty was constitutionally valid under article 21 of the Indian constitution which states that ‘’No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law’’. It was said that since the death penalty was given by procedure established by law it is constitutionally valid. It was also held in Bachan Singh vs State of Punjab that the death penalty was only to be given in the “Rarest or rare” cases. That might seem like a satisfactory answer, until you start looking at the finer details about the death penalty in India Yes, the death penalty might be constitutionally valid under article 21 of Indian constitution because it follows a procedure established by law, But what if the whole problem with the death penalty was this procedure itself?  This research focuses on the numerous errors that take place during the trials and sentencing period and how that violates the basic rights of the convicts.