Law Commission of India to hold one-day consultation on the death penalty

Inaugurated by Gopal Krishna Gandhi, the consultation will bring together a select group of leading figures in the judiciary, the bar, academia, media, and political and public life, to debate and discuss various aspects of the death penalty.

In order to facilitate comprehensive deliberations, the consultation is organized as a roundtable and all participants will attend the event throughout the day.

Each session will begin with short remarks by invited speakers.

The floor will then be open for inputs from all participants. Besides leading figures from Indian society, the consultation will be attended by Professor Roger Hood, Professor Emeritus of Criminology and Research Associate, Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford.

Four key themes will be discussed at the consultation, as follows:

1.      Arbitrariness and Discrimination: Is the death penalty applied arbitrarily? How can this be avoided or removed? Does the death penalty discriminate against marginalized and vulnerable people?

2.      State of the Criminal Justice System: What are the challenges faced by the criminal justice system, including the police, investigation processes, the judiciary and jail systems? How can the system be improved to allow for fair, impartial, and error-free application of the death penalty?

3.      The Penological Purpose(s) of the Death Penalty: What purpose does the death penalty serve? What alternatives can replace the death penalty to serve the same purpose?

4.      The Way Forward: Retention, Reform, Abolition: Should the death penalty be retained in its present or modified form, in view of India’s constitutional and international legal commitments?

In recent cases, the Supreme Court has recognized that despite the “rarest of rare” doctrine, the death penalty continues to be applied arbitrarily. In Santosh Bariyar v. State of Maharashtra (2009), the Supreme Court recognized that the penalty was wrongly imposed on at least 15 persons. In Sangeet v. State of Maharashtra (2013), the Court admitted that the penalty was wrongly imposed in 5 other cases, adding that it was unable to decide whether the case was fit for imposing the death penalty due to uncertainties in India’s death penalty jurisprudence. Advances in empirical research, particularly in countries where the death penalty has been abolished, have also disputed the supposed deterrent effect of the death penalty.
         
These changes in India and elsewhere make it an opportune moment to revisit questions of the constitutionality and desirability of the death penalty.