The death penalty has no place in a civilised state.With the recent stay on the execution of four of Veerappan’s aides who were sentenced to death on the change of killing 22 people in landmine blasts in Palar, this issue has again come to the forefront.

They have been languishing in Hindalga Central Jail in Belgaum since 2004, and suffering anguish while awaiting the sentence.

The execution of Afzal Guru is a travesty of justice in many ways.

First, he was hanged seven years after the Supreme Court sentenced him to death and six years after his mercy petition to the President.

The rejection of his mercy plea was kept from his family to prevent it from becoming the subject of judicial consideration as has happened in other cases of inordinate delay in execution.

His family was not informed in advance about his execution and Afzal’s body was buried in secrecy in Tihar jail.

The execution of Ajmal Kasab for involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks was also legally flawed.

According to a notification by the Ministry of Home Affairs published the day Kasab was hanged (November 21, 2012), the President had rejected his mercy petition on November 5.

Kasab was informed of this on November 12. It is not clear whether he was aware of the possibility of seeking a judicial review of the President’s decision.

The executions of both Kasab and Afzal were in complete contradiction to the UN Commission on Human Rights Resolution 2005/59 adopted on April 20, 2005 that asks states that still have death penalty “to make available to the public information with regard to the imposition of death penalty and to any scheduled execution”.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which India is a state party and which allows the death penalty in certain situations, clearly states in Article 6.6 that no provision of Article 6 (which allows the death penalty) should be used “to delay or to prevent the abolition of capital punishment”.

The UNHRC concluded its General Comment No. 6 of April 30, 1982 by stating that “all measures of abolition (of death penalty) should be considered as progress in the enjoyment of the right to life”.

As a state party to the ICCPR, India is legally obliged to implement the provisions of the treaty.

The legal flaw of the death penalty came to the forefront when the Supreme Court explicitly stated in Santosh Kr Bariar v. State of Maharashtra (2009) that the death sentences pronounced by the apex court between 1996 and 2009 were found to be per incuriam , meaning they were pronounced in ignorance of law.

(Soumya did her MA in English at Presidency College, Kolkata, before coming to the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai.)

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