How many people are given the death penalty in India?

How many people are given the death penalty in India? How many executions happen in India?

In India, capital punishment is awarded for murder, gang robbery with murder, abetting the suicide of a child or insane person, waging war against the government, and abetting mutiny by a member of the armed forces. It is also given under some anti-terror laws for those convicted for terrorist activities. The death sentence is imposed only when the court comes to the conclusion that life imprisonment is inadequate based on the facts and circumstances of the case.

The Law Commission of India released a report in 2015 recommending that the country move toward abolishing the death penalty, except in terrorism cases to safeguard national security.

Also see: Why is death penalty almost unimplementable in india

Currently judges in India can impose the death penalty in the “rarest of rare” cases, including treason, mutiny, murder, abetment of suicide, and kidnapping for ransom. In 2013, an amendment to the law permitted death as a punishment in cases where rape was fatal or left the victim in a persistent vegetative state, as well as for certain repeat offenders.

According to the Law Commission report, executions in the recent past have been few, with significant time gaps. Only three convicts were executed over a period of 10 years, one each in West Bengal (2004), Maharashtra (2012), and Delhi (2013).

India saw an execution-free period of seven years between 2004 and 2012. The latest was the execution of Yakub Memon. The Court found him guilty of being behind a series of explosions in Mumbai in 1993, killing more than 250 people. On average, the courts sentence 129 people to death row in India every year, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.

Data shows a huge gap between death sentences pronounced and actual executions. According to an ACHR report and National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, there have been several death sentences between 2001 and 2011. But the authorities actually carried out only a few of these. Despite the fact that death sentences rarely convert to executions in India, the Law Commission recommends abolishing the penalty in most cases.

According to leading criminal lawyers in india, people sentenced to death by Indian courts face long delays in trials and appeals. “During this time, the prisoner on death row suffers from extreme agony, anxiety, and fear arising out of an imminent yet uncertain execution,” the Law Commission said. It added that solitary confinement and harsh conditions imposed on prisoners were degrading and oppressive.

The Law Commission report cited the following reasons while advocating the abolition of capital punishment:

1. Developments in India. India has made significant progress since the last report in 1967. The level of education, general well-being, and socio-economic developments are vastly different today.
2. Death penalty as a deterrent is a myth. The decline in murder rate in India has coincided with a decline in rate of executions. This raises questions about whether the death penalty has any greater deterrent effect than life imprisonment.
3. Arbitrary sentencing of capital punishment. The Supreme Court has expressed concerns over arbitrary imposition of capital punishment. In most cases, the courts have affirmed or refused to affirm the death penalty without laying down legal principles.
4. Long delays leading to extreme agony. Death row prisoners continue to face long delays in trials, appeals, and executive clemency. During this time, prisoners on death row suffer from agony, anxiety, and fear because of an imminent yet uncertain execution.
5. International developments. India has retained capital punishment while 140 countries have abolished it in law or in practice. That leaves India in a club with the USA, Iran, China, and Saudi Arabia as a country which retains it.

The commission concluded that the death penalty does not serve the goal of deterrence any more than life imprisonment.

Why is death penalty almost unimplementable in india

Why is death penalty almost unimplementable in India

On the one hand, states are framing laws — like Andhra Pradesh's Disha Bill to sentence rapists to death in 21 days — for speedy sentencing — but even those convicted for the most heinous crimes are yet to be hanged. The system has safeguards to ensure the last possible legal option is open to a convict before he faces the noose. But sometimes things fall through the cracks.

It can well be argued that death penalty should be done away with, like it has been in most of the advanced world. But if it exists, and even if the apex court upholds death penalty, then to keep a prisoner waiting on death row forever makes little sense. In India, the only person executed for a heinous crime (not terror) in this century was Dhananjay Chatterjee, who was hanged at Kolkata’s Alipore Central Jail on August 14, 2004.

Why is death penalty almost unimplementable in India

Death sentence in 2018

Also see: Death sentence in India from 1995 to 2018

In the case of Nirbhaya — the 23-year-old physiotherapy student who was brutally gang raped and murdered on December 16-17, 2012, in a moving bus in Delhi — the woman's parents filed a case seeking speedy execution, but on December 18, 2019, the court adjourned for January 7, 2020, the hearing on the issuance of death warrants against the four convicts. "I have full sympathy with you. I know someone has died but there are their rights too. We are here to listen to you but are also bound by the law," said the judge who pronounced the judgment.

HOW THE PROCESS BEGINS
1. Starts with fast-track
Trial courts (or fast-track courts) handling cases of sexual offences against women and children are bound by deadlines. They need to decide the case within six months after filing of the charge-sheet. But on an average, trial courts take between 1 and 2 years to reach a verdict notwithstanding the day-to-day hearing in cases mandated by Section 309 CrPC.
2. Higher courts
But high courts and the Supreme Court deal with such matters on a case-by-case basis. There is no fixed time-frame; it is up to the chief justice or the presiding judge to take a call.
3. Review plea
After conviction by the Supreme Court, a convict gets 30 days’ time to seek review under Article 137 of the Constitution. Even after a review plea is dismissed, the convict can file a curative petition invoking Article 142 (inherent powers) of the Supreme Court. There is no time-frame within which it has to be filed; but courts have largely accepted six months after dismissal of review plea as the standard.
4. Mercy plea
As a last resort, a convict has right to seek mercy by filing a petition directly with the President. The process provided under Article 72, however, doesn’t provide for any prescribed procedure to deal with such mercy petitions.
5. Leniency
Indian courts and jail administration are generally lenient if there is delay in filing of review, curative or mercy petitions by a convict, recognising that imprisoned persons find it difficult to hire lawyers and prepare petitions.

 CASE THAT SHOW HOW PLEAS FOR MERCY PROGRESS

Nithari killings: How Koli escaped the plea at the 11th hour in 2014

Surendra Koli's hanging was fixed for September 2014 but the SC stayed the execution in the middle of the night over a pending review petition

16 FIRs were registered against Surendra Koli for rape and murder in the Noida serial murders case involving him and his employer Moninder Singh Pandher that came to light in 2006. Death sentence was handed to Koli in 11 cases by the trial court, while 5 cases are still pending.
- In 2009, the first death sentence to Koli was awarded by the trial court. Allahabad HC confirmed the death sentence.
- In 2011, SC dismissed the appeal and upheld the death sentence. Koli then filed a mercy petition.
- In 2014, President rejected the mercy petition. The hanging was fixed for September after the trial court issued a black warrant (the final order). However, SC stayed the execution at 2am over Koli’s pending review petition after lawyers appeared for him and got him a reprieve on this ground. SC rejected the review in October.
- In 2015, Koli and an NGO separately moved the Allahabad HC against hanging on the grounds of delay in deciding the mercy petition. The high court commuted death to life citing 2014 SC ruling in Shatrughan Chauhan case. Since then, Koli has been convicted and awarded death sentence in 10 other cases, including one in April 2019. Due to multiple cases and trials and witnesses/victims, justice has been delayed with each case likely to go through the full cycle of appeals and review. Jurisprudence in capital punishment argues that since death is irrevocable, authorities should wait for a convict to exhaust all legal options before carrying out the sentence.

Unit-II: General Exceptions judicial acts ( section 77 and 78)

Judicial act (section 77, 78)

Section 77  - Act of judge when acting judicially.

Section 77 in The Indian Penal Code

 Act of Judge when acting judicially.—Nothing is an offence which is done by a Judge when acting judicially in the exercise of any power which is, or which in good faith he believes to be, given to him by law.

Section 78 -Act done by pursuant to the judgement or orders of the courts .

Section 78 in The Indian Penal Code

Act done pursuant to the judgment or order of Court.—Nothing which is done in pursuance of, or which is warranted by the judgment or order of, a Court of Justice; if done whilst such judgment or order remains in force, is an offence, notwithstand­ing the Court may have had no jurisdiction to pass such judgment or order, provided the person doing the act in good faith be­lieves that the Court had such jurisdiction.

 Objection of section 77 and 78

Under section 77 and 78 of IPC, protection is given to the judges and their ministerial staff who are executing the orders of the judges is to ensure the independence of judges and to enable them to discharge their duties without any fear of consequences.

*The protection is based on public policy.

Section 19 defines judge: 

A person who is officially designated as judge but also person who is empowered by law to give a definite judgement any civil or criminal proceedings.

Essentials of section 77

Section 77 extent special immunity to a judge against criminal prosecution with respect to acts done by him judicially in discharge of his official duty.