To begin with, let me explain my understanding of the rationale behind the death penalty. A convict, I believe, is condemned to death by a court of law only after the conscience of the court is convinced that she is beyond the reach of repentance and the reformation measures in our prison system, and therefore, not suitable to be restored into the society someday. It is, in that sense, an eternal banishment from society, the threat of which, it is hoped, will deter others from taking to the same or a similarly repugnant criminal course. The death penalty, surely, is not an act of retribution, aimed at avenging the aggrieved person.
Based on this premise, you may be flummoxed by the Supreme Court's recent decision to commute the death sentences of a few convicts sat in the anteroom to the gallows, their mercy petitions having been rejected by the executive after an inordinately and inexplicably long delay. The Court reasoned that the psychological torment they had to endure, living every moment of each day their petitions languished in files and folders, as did they in their prison cells, swinging from hope to despair, without hanging from a pole, made their period of imprisonment a cruel experience, meted out in excess of what they had been sentenced to, and thus, constituted punishment in itself. Therefore, putting them to death now would amount to punishing them twice for the same crime, and reason would demand that they be compensated for the uncalled for cruelty they were subjected to. So, it is only just that they should serve life terms instead. Although fifteen convicts were taken off death row in this manner last month, three men charged with the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi met with this judicial twist of fate only this week. And even as the extension of such a humanitarian legal privilege to confirmed terrorists was being debated, the Tamil Nadu government startlingly proposed to release the three men on parole, taking into account the duration of their imprisonment and their behaviour thereof.
The Supreme Court's verdict on the death sentence, to me, is fair, even if not readily palatable. But, I cannot comprehend the clause permitting the appropriate government to release a former death row convict, now imprisoned for life, on parole. The death sentence, during the initial criminal trial, would have been challenged at successive levels of the judiciary, and a plea to the President of India would have been made only after the Supreme Court's confirmation of the penalty. Returning to the premise at the beginning, this would mean the Court was sure that the convicts are beyond rehabilitation. So, can the Court second guess the logic behind its own past verdict in trying to remedy the cruelty to the convict that it had never intended? Then, is psychological torment an impetus to reformation, one which recasts the most incorrigible criminal as person eligible to be released into society. If yes, shouldn't we be doing away with the death penalty and devising effective psychological torments instead? Taking away a few years from a convict's life while bringing about a transformation that can only be achieved through psychological torment must be preferable to putting her to death.
The Supreme Court's verdict on the death sentence, to me, is fair, even if not readily palatable. But, I cannot comprehend the clause permitting the appropriate government to release a former death row convict, now imprisoned for life, on parole. The death sentence, during the initial criminal trial, would have been challenged at successive levels of the judiciary, and a plea to the President of India would have been made only after the Supreme Court's confirmation of the penalty. Returning to the premise at the beginning, this would mean the Court was sure that the convicts are beyond rehabilitation. So, can the Court second guess the logic behind its own past verdict in trying to remedy the cruelty to the convict that it had never intended? Then, is psychological torment an impetus to reformation, one which recasts the most incorrigible criminal as person eligible to be released into society. If yes, shouldn't we be doing away with the death penalty and devising effective psychological torments instead? Taking away a few years from a convict's life while bringing about a transformation that can only be achieved through psychological torment must be preferable to putting her to death.
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