[Answered] Discuss the desirability of the death sentence as a step to prevent crimes or a measure of long-due justice.

According to the Death Penalty in India Report, number of prisoners on death row is the highest in 2021 with an increase of 21%.  With the increasing numbers of death penalties, it becomes important to analyze the useful ness of awarding death penalties.

Arguments against the death sentence

• Death penalty does not end the crime: The report of the Justice J.S. Verma Committee said that capital punishment is a regressive step and may not provide deterrence. The committee recommended the life sentence for the most grievous of crimes.
• Limited access to legal representation: The weight of the death penalty is disproportionate against socio-economically weak accused, as they have limited access to legal representation.
• Risk of executing an innocent person: There is a risk of executing an innocent as execution becomes an ultimate, irrevocable punishment without any possibility of reform.
• Offense against humanity: According to an eminent jurist, life is given by God and can be taken by God. When an institution can kill someone using any doctrine, it defeats the moral imperative to do no harm by the state.
• Public sentiments: Rarest of rare doctrine allows the use of public sentiment as a judicially reliable standard in giving death sentences.

Desirability of the death sentence to prevent crimes

Following arguments favors the Desirability of the death sentence:

1. Prevent Future crimes: capital punishment serves as a deterrent and is sometimes handed out as a “response to the society’s call for appropriate punishment in appropriate cases
2. Judicial Reasoning: The judgment of the Supreme Court of India in Bachan Singh vs. State of Punjab (1980) held that Death penalty in India can be given in rarest of rare cases like rapes.
3. Punishment to guilty: A guilty must be punished with respect to the severity of the crime. Murder and rape are very severe crimes, death penalty must be imposed on such crimes.
4. Deterrence to state sponsored terror: India is surrounded by enemies in the neighborhood and cases of violent terror are constant reminders of the need to protect national stability by ensuring appropriate responses to such actions, and the death penalty forms part of the national response.
5. International examples: Even liberal democracies such as the USA have not abolished it.

Way Forward

The death penalty, if not avoidable, should be sentenced after taking all necessary measures. Before exercising the option, a balance sheet of aggravating and mitigating circumstances must be drawn out, with the mitigating factors given full weightage.