Capital Punishment
What is Capital Punishment?
Capital punishment is a punishment of Death Penalty (Death Punishment) given for serious offenses like murder. The Death penalty is a far more powerful and effective deterrent than life imprisonment. In another point of view, the Death penalty is to protect human life.
In the beginning, the death penalty is considered as, effective method to placate God. This was the revenge theory. If any person brought serious loss to any one of its members, therefore, deserved to be forfeited. Men fear death than imprisonment. So, it is a stronger deterrent. It serves as a unique deterrent to professional criminals.
In our Country Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 the death sentence was a rule and life imprisonment an exception in capital offenses and whenever the court preferred to award a sentence lesser than death in such offenses it was required under section 367(5) of the Criminal Procedure Code to record its reasons in writing. Later on by an amendment in the year 1955 section 367(5) of the Cr.p.Code, 1898 was omitted and thus, therefore, the courts become free to award either a death sentence or life imprisonment. In 1962 the question of the abolition of the death penalty was referred to as the law commission. The commission in its 35th Report did not favor its abolition. Now the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 in section 354(3) provides that in case of death sentence special reasons are to be stated. Now imprisonment for murder is the rule and capital sentence an exception. In the case of the death sentence, the court is required to state the reasons which justify its imposition as against life imprisonment.
In Mohan Singh v. Delhi Administration, the appellant being dissatisfied with the award made by the arbitration regarding the distribution of wages between him and his other partner killed the arbitrator. The medical report revealed that nearly sixteen injuries were found on the dead body of the deceased which in the ordinary course would have been sufficient to cause the death of a person.
It was held by the Supreme Court that the number of injuries inflicted on the body of the deceased shows that the appellant had acted with violence and brutality on an unarmed and defenseless person. The various injuries on the hands and palms of the deceased indicate that the latter must have been desperately trying to save his life by attempting to ward off the blows with his hands. all these circumstances clearly show that the murder committed by the appellant was brutal in nature. Under the circumstances, the award of the death sentence was perfectly justified.
In Jagmohan Singh v. the State of U.P., it was argued that the death penalty was unconstitutional and hence invalid as a mode of punishment. It was contended that the freedoms guaranteed under Article 19 of the Constitution cannot be coextensive with the legislature prescribing the punishment of death as a restriction on the fundamental freedoms. The right to live which is basic to the enjoyments of freedoms within the permissible constitutional limits cannot be understood to co-exist with that legislative injunction which has the character of destroying life. Therefore, any legislative attempt on the destruction of life cannot be deemed to be a reasonable restriction on the right to life implicitly found in the fundamental freedoms.
Another ground of attack was that discretion to impose the death sentence was not based on any standard of policy, and it thus suffered from the vice of excessive delegation of legislative power. Since the courts have unguided discretion to impose the death penalty or even lesser punishment for the offense of murder, it violates the equal protection clause embodied in Article 14 of the Indian constitution. Further in the absence of any procedure established by law in the matter of sentence, the protection given in Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.
The Supreme Court did not agree with any of the above contentions and held the death penalty as valid. The deprivation of life is constitutionally permissible if that is done according to the procedure established by law. It would be difficult to say that the capital sentence per se is unreasonable or is not in the public interest.
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