Capital punishment in India

Capital punishment in India is legal but rare.During the late 1900's , about 40 people were executed. Since 1995 only one execution, that of Dhananjoy Chatterjee in August 2004, has taken place. The number of people executed in India since independence in 1947 is a matter of dispute; official government statistics claim that only 55 people had been executed since independence, but the People's Union for Civil Liberties cited information from Appendix 34 of the 1967 Law Commission of India report showing that 1,422 executions took place in 16 Indian states from 1953 to 1963, and some have suggested that the total number of executions since independence may by as high as 4,300. [Batra, Bikram Jeet. " [http://www.indiatogether.org/2005/apr/hrt-pudr1422.htm 1422 executions in 10 years, many more?] ." "India Together" 2 April 2005.] ["' [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1046770.cms Number of executions much higher than 55] .'" "Times of India". 10 March 2005.]

The Supreme Court of India ruled in 1983 that the death penalty should be imposed only in "the rarest of rare cases."Majumder, Sanjoy. " [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2586611.stm India and the death penalty] ." BBC News 4 August 2005.] Capital crimes are 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. In recent years the death penalty has been imposed under new anti-terrorism legislation for people convicted of terrorist activities.

About 40 mercy petitions are pending before the president, some of them from 1992. At least 3 are women. Many more are on death row after having been sentenced to die by lower courts, but on appeal most of them are likely to be commuted to life imprisonment by the State High Courts or the Supreme Court of India.

It appears that judges in the lower courts are also getting increasingly averse to use capital punishment. For example in 2007 several high profile cases involving pre-meditated cold blooded murders, rape and murder of minors during rioting, terrorist bombings, etc. have not attracted the death penalty. But activists reveal a flaw, that due to the absence of sentencing guidelines in what constitutes "rarest of the rare", in some less gruesome murders, the lower courts have awarded death sentences possibly due to poor defence presented by the lawyers of the economically backward.

The death penalty is carried out by hanging. After a 1983 challenge to this method, the Supreme Court ruled that hanging did not involve torture, barbarity, humiliation or degradation.

Mohammad Afzal was convicted of conspiracy in connection with the 2001 Indian Parliament attack and was sentenced to death. The Supreme Court of India upheld the sentence, ruling that the the attack "shocked the conscience of the society at large." Afzal was scheduled to be executed on October 20, 2006, but the sentence was stayed. The Afzal case remains a volatile political issue.

At least 100 people in 2007, 40 in 2006, 77 in 2005, 23 in 2002, and 33 in 2001 were sentenced to death, according to Amnesty International figures. No official statistics of those sentenced to death have been released. In December 2007, India voted against a United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for a moratorium on the death penalty. [http://www.amnestyusa.org/annualreport.php?id=ar&yr=2008&c=IND] [http://www.amnestyusa.org/annualreport.php?id=ar&yr=2007&c=IND] [http://www.amnestyusa.org/annualreport.php?id=ar&yr=2006&c=IND] [http://www.amnestyusa.org/annualreport.php?id=ar&yr=2005&c=IND] [http://www.amnestyusa.org/annualreport.php?id=ar&yr=2004&c=IND]

References

* [http://amnesty.org.in/downloads/DP_Summary_Report-1May2008.doc] Lethal lottery: The Death Penalty in India -a study of Supreme Court judgments in death penalty cases 1950-2006 (summary report)
* [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA20/006/2008] Lethal lottery: The Death Penalty in India -a study of Supreme Court judgments in death penalty cases 1950-2006 (Complete Report)

External links

* [http://amnesty.org.in/downloads/DP_Summary_Report-1May2008.doc] Lethal lottery: The Death Penalty in India -a study of Supreme Court judgments in death penalty cases 1950-2006 (summary report)
* [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA20/006/2008] Lethal lottery: The Death Penalty in India -a study of Supreme Court judgments in death penalty cases 1950-2006 (Complete Report)
* [http://web.amnesty.org/library/pdf/ASA200342005ENGLISH/$File/ASA2003405.pdf#search=%22death%20penalty%20in%20india%22 The Death Penalty in India] Briefing for the EU-India Summit, 7 September 2005
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2586611.stm India and the death penalty] Sanjoy Majumder, BBC News.