Indian Polity
Proposal for Guidelines to Execute Death Penalty
- 23 Jan 2020
- 2 min read
Why in News
The Central government has filed a petition before the Supreme Court, seeking a time limit of seven days for death row convicts to file a mercy plea.
- The petition seeks appropriate modifications to the judgement passed in 2014, during the case of Shatrughan Chauhan versus the Union of India and others.
- The above judgment defined the procedure and guidelines to be adopted in cases of prisoners on death row.
- The move comes in the backdrop of various pleas filed by convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape case (2012) that have delayed their hanging.
Other Demands
- Imposition of a time limit to file curative and review petitions for death row convicts.
- Mandatory issuance of death warrant of a convict within seven days of the rejection of his mercy petition by the competent courts, State governments, prison authorities in the country.
- Execution of the death sentence within seven days after the issuance of death warrant of the convict irrespective of the stage of review petition/curative petition/mercy petition of his co-convicts.
Background
- There are instances where the death sentence is not executed because the co-convicts either by default or by design choose to file review or curative or mercy petition one after the other, even at a belated stage. This causes a delay in the execution of the sentence of other co-convicts whose mercy petition has already been rejected.
- The existing guidelines to execute the death penalty are more"convict-centric" rather than "victim-centric". As these guidelines do not take into account an irreparable mental trauma of the victims and their family members, the collective conscience of the nation.
- Over the years, it has been observed that convicts of heinous crimes misuse Article 21 (Right to life) to delay the judicial proceedings and in turn death sentences.
