The court had started suo moto procedures to investigate whether measures should be included to lessen the use of the death penalty and to increase the number of “mitigating factors” that can enable a convicted person to avoid execution.
Additionally, the court must specify attenuating conditions precisely. Although a five-judge panel will consider the case, the majority of attorneys believed that the clause ought to be removed. This would be consistent with the global movement to remove the death sentence. Roughly 75% of the global population has done away with it.
The court has stated that a consistent framework is required in order to outline mitigating circumstances regarding the death penalty. Moreover, the Law Commission supports abolition, with the exception of offences relating to terrorism.
However, it is disheartening that the official perspective in India has the opposite view. The nation has voted against draft resolutions on the abolition of the death penalty from the UN. The number of offences that can result in the death penalty has climbed from 11 to 15, according to the Bharatiya Nyaya Samhita (BNS), which aims to replace the Indian Penal Code. After examining the BNS suggestions, the parliamentary committee concluded that “the matter may be left for the government to consider”.
It was argued that the primary justification for abolishing the death penalty is the possibility of judicial error leading to the execution of an innocent person. However, experts and others provided the committee with submissions that included more legitimate arguments. Sadly, the government, whose viewpoint on the topic is previously known, was left to handle the committee’s suggestion instead of basing it on their findings.
The standard that the death sentence should only be applied in the most exceptional circumstances has been established by the Supreme Court. However, the standard is ambiguous and subject to differing interpretations by judges.
Although it is promoted as a deterrence to violent crimes, it is now generally acknowledged to be ineffective. The deterrent effect of punishment is not its severity but rather its certainty. Members of the parliamentary committee who disagreed with the committee’s recommendation have taken notice of this. The goal of the legal system ought to be to help someone who has committed a crime change. Justice is not retribution, which is what the death sentence essentially amounts to. No one has the authority to end another person’s life; human laws are required.
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