Death Penalty or Capital Punishment is to be regarded as the most critical level of punishment granted in any society or democracy to maintain law and order. But taking away the life of another human being in the name of justice is nothing far from committing a regular murder. Lot of experts believe that the world as a society should focus primarily on eliminating the crime and not the criminal. The practice of death sentence is rigorously being practiced in China with over 1000 executions being carried out by the country whereas the land of India follows the “rarest of rare” doctrine in the implementation of capital punishment as a punishment and quite often we tend to see the sentence of death penalty in plethora of cases being commuted to rigorous life imprisonment. Though both China and India follow the same similarities in the procedure and law of capital punishment, the only difference is that once capital punishment is awarded in China, it cannot be overturn or revoke its decision announced.
Capital Punishment has been one of the most controversial topics which is being debated across worldwide about its legal implication and validity since a very long time. Death Penalty is the process which is carried out by the State to hang the accused to death if he is found to have committed any heinous crime which includes murder, rape, sexual assault, mass murder or anything which is found to be affecting the public tranquillity of the State. The topic of death penalty has been widely discussed among many well-known jurists, scholars, lawyers, judges, professors, social activists, legal reforms, and law commissions either supporting it for its implementation or abolishment of the process. Capital punishment removes the culprits for the greater good of the society. On one hand the society believes that it is such an inhuman practice implemented by the State to terminate a person’s whole life in such a manner whereas on the other hand there are considerable amount of people in the society who seems to endorse it or support such procedure followed by the State as they believe that taking away such persons life who is found to these heinous crimes against the society is justified in the eyes of law and such accused is nothing but a serious threat to the society at large if they are let scot free and therefore their lives must be terminated as per their ideology. Thus, every individual, be it an icon or a common human being have their own separate views about death penalty being carried out in the state.
A Democratic country like India which guarantees human rights to its citizens gathered much heat while debating about the concept of death penalty. Death penalty is used as a tool by the State to apprehend a fear in the minds of the citizens to avoid engaging into or committing heinous crimes against the State. Many believed that this ideology is absurd and not effective for a valid legal system in attaining any type of justice. Typically, this is the only ideology which seems to be followed in those countries which execute death penalty as a solid punishment. A lot of activists believe this pathetic ideology must be re-considered and make further decisions to abolish the concept of capital punishments.
Clearly many believe that a human being taking a life of another human being is nowhere near attaining justice.
Out of the 78 retentionist countries, India is one of the nations which has retained Death Penalty as a punishment and stated that such punishments will be awarded only on exceptional circumstances or on the “rarest of rare cases”. Over the years numerous case laws have been decided regarding the Constitutional validity of the practice of Capital Punishment in India. The Supreme Court held that the choice of granting death penalty is done in accordance with the procedure established by law. The Court had held that the choice of granting a sentence of capital punishment is to be solely decided by the judge based on the facts and circumstances of the case which is brought before the court.
It is true that a wrongdoer of crimes must be punished seriously for his crimes that he has committed, but as a society our primary aim is to focus on eliminating the offense and not the offender itself. As discussed earlier, democracies should strive towards the reformative theory rather than approaching the deterrent theory of punishment which rehabilitates the offender and provides him a second opportunity to get back the trust of the society.
Aishwarya Says:
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