Abolishing death penalty: Don’t forget rights of victims, say law panel dissenters

[related-post]

She also said the “possibility of error” should not be reason for abolishing death, asserting that the rarest of rare doctrine laid down by the Supreme Court had stood the test of time.

“What other sentence could have been given to ‘Nithari’ (killer)?” she asked in her dissent note. She also asserted that saying that innate disposition of human minds that control, manage and administer such positions makes them “inevitably arbitrary” was not correct.

“Can we lose sight of the cases like Kasab and Afzal Guru? They posed threat to security, safety and peace of the society,” she added.

Justice Mehra said, “Recommending blanket abolition of death sentence or moratorium on death penalty in heinous crimes is not an appropriate course particularly keeping in view the circumstances prevailing in our country.”

Union Law Secretary P K Malhotra’s dissent note said that while he didn’t agree with the recommendation that death penalty should immediately be abolished for all offences other than terror cases, he agreed with the view that abolition of death sentence was an “eventual goal”.

Arguing that a person planning to commit a crime should be aware of the implications of doing so, Malhotra said that if “implications” keep getting waived, then law would “cease of exist”.

Malhotra has also said that Parliament, in its wisdom, had prescribed the death penalty only for heinous crimes.

“The need of the hour is to retain it… We have a vibrant judiciary which is respected world over. We should have faith in the wisdom of our judges that they will exercise this power only in deserving cases for which the law is well laid down in various judgments…”

The third person to submit a dissent note, Union Legislative Secretary Sanjay Singh, maintained the panel should not recommend something which has the effect of preventing the state from making any law in the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of the country. His logic being that apart from the fact that the Constitutionality of the death sentence has been upheld on numerous occasions by the Supreme Court, capital punishment also acts as a deterrent.

“If death sentence is abolished, the fear that comes in the way of people committing heinous crimes will be removed, which would result in more brutal crimes,” said Singh.