Barely 6 months after he moved into Rashtrapati Bhavan, President Pranab Mukherjee has rejected the two most talked about mercy petitions in recent times, resulting in the hanging of terror convicts in both cases.
The rejection of mercy petitions filed by Mumbai terror convict Ajmal Amir Kasab and Parliament attack mastermind Afzal Guru by Mukherjee within a gap of 10 weeks is a marked departure from the style of functioning of his predecessors.
Former President Pratibha Patil had left 16 mercy petitions of convicts on death row pending for her successor.
Within 6 months, 2 of them have been rejected, a death sentence has been commuted into life imprisonment and 13 others have been sent back to the ministry of home affairs, seeking fresh opinion in the petitions.
During her 5-year tenure, Patil rejected 3 mercy petitions and commuted death sentences into life imprisonment in 12 cases.
She wanted to go slow and had reportedly told the government that as the 1st woman President, she could not act hastily and send convicts to the gallows in the 23 cases which she had "inherited".
Mukherjee, however, entered the Rashtrapati Bhavan with no such baggage.
In fact, history repeated itself when he rejected Kasab's mercy petition in November 2012. Mukherjee was the external affairs minister when the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack took place in 2008, and he had played a pivotal role in building international pressure on Pakistan.
Kasab, a Pakistani militant and a member of the Lashkar-e-Taiba Islamist group, was hanged on November 21, 2012.
While there is a raging global debate over the abolition of death penalty, Mukherjee has shown, on earlier occasions too, that he does not shy away from this provision.
As finance minister, he had recommended retention of death penalty in the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Amendment) Bill, but had agreed to make it optional instead of mandatory punishment.
Source: Hindustan Times, February 10, 2013
Amnesty condemns Afzal Guru's execution, calls it a disturbing and regressive trend
Global human rights group Amnesty International on Saturday said the hanging of Mohammad Afzal Guru, convicted of conspiracy to attack Indian Parliament, indicates a "disturbing and regressive trend" towards executions shrouded in secrecy. "We condemn the execution in the strongest possible terms. This very regrettably puts India in opposition to the global trend towards moving away from death penalty", said Shashikumar Velath, Programmes Director at Amnesty International India.
He alleged "serious questions have been raised about the fairness of Afzal Guru s trial. He did not receive legal representation of his choice or a lawyer with adequate experience at the trial stage. These concerns were not addressed. Before Ajmal Kasab's execution in November, Indian authorities used to make information about the rejection of mercy petitions and dates of execution available to the public prior to any executions. The new practice of carrying out executions in secret is highly disturbing."
Guru was sentenced to death in December 2002 after being convicted of conspiracy to attack the Parliament of India, waging war against India and murder in December 2001.
Source: IBN Live, February 10, 2013
Supreme Court firm on death penalty for terror acts, rape-murder cases
Hanging in quick succession of 2 condemned prisoners - terrorist Ajmal Kasab for 26/11 and Mohd Afzal for 2001 terror attack on Parliament - has turned focus on death sentence, which the Supreme Court appeared increasingly wary of imposing in the recent years.
In several gruesome murders, including Swami Shradhananda case to a recent judgment in a Punjab case where four members of a family were wiped out over property dispute, the Supreme Court has commuted the death penalty concurrently imposed by the trial court and the High Court to life imprisonment.
The court had commuted death sentence of Shradhananda, but ordered the authorities to confine him to prison for rest of his life for murder of his wife Shakereh Namazi, who was granddaughter of Sir Mirza Ismail, a former Diwan of the erstwhile Mysore State. In the Punjab case, the SC awarded imprisonment for 30 years.
A closer look at the judgments in the last decade and half revealed that the court had been less inclined to award death penalty in heinous offences if it was committed at the spur of the moment because of civil disputes or political rivalry.
However, it had been quite firm in imposing capital punishment when the case revealed mindless killing aimed at striking terror in the heart of ordinary citizens and also intended to weaken the fabric of the nation to endanger the country's security. The judgments in the 26/11 attack and Parliament attack cases were a testimony to it.
It also had also shown no leniency, with few aberrations, to those convicted in rape-murder cases, especially involving minors and mentally challenged.
In the past couple of attempts were made in the Supreme Court through petitions to seek abolition of the death penalty on the ground that it did not match with the civilized concept of deterrent punishment for a crime. Petitioners had appealed that punitive jurisprudence must lean more towards reforming an offender than condemning him.
But, the apex court had upheld the constitutional validity of Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code providing for death penalty and said it would be awarded in "rarest of rare" cases as long as the punishment remained in the statute books.
However, there had been a clamour for reconsideration of the award of death penalty in rarest of rare category of heinous crimes, a classification which were evolved and strengthened in the Bachan Singh case and Machi Singh case judgments of the apex court more then 2 decades ago.
Recently, the Supreme Court had developed a doubt: whether the classification of a case under the rarest of rare category for award of death penalty to a offender in a heinous offence was an impartial appreciation of the evidence on the nature of the crime and the aggravating and mitigating circumstances against and for the accused or it was merely Judge-centric.
This doubt of the SC was clarified by the court itself in a judgment delivered on February 7. It said: "Courts award death sentence because situation demands, due to constitutional compulsion, reflected by the will of the people."
After examining a case from the heinousness aspect, the courts scrutinize evidence to ascertain the nature of the criminal and then apply the "rarest of rare case" test to arrive at the conclusion whether award of capital punishment was warranted, it said.
The court said "rarest of rare case" test depended on the perception of society and was not "judge-centric", whether society would approve the award of death sentence to those convicted in certain types of crimes.
"While applying this test, the court has to look into a variety of factors like society's abhorrence, extreme indignation and antipathy to certain types of crimes like rape and murder of minor girls, especially intellectually challenged minor girls, minor girls with physical disability, old and infirm women with those disabilities etc (examples are illustrative and not exhaustive)," it had said.
Source: The Times of India, February 10, 2013
Secret Hanging a Major Step Back; Join International Trend Towards Abolishing Death Penalty
The hanging in New Delhi of Mohammad Afzal Guru makes it more urgent for India to reinstate its previous informal moratorium on executions as a step towards abolishing the death penalty, Human Rights Watch said today. Azfal Guru, executed on February 9, 2013, was convicted for his role in the attack on the Indian parliament in 2001.
In November 2012, India ended its 8-year unofficial moratorium on executions when it hanged Ajmal Kasab, convicted for his role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
"Questions need to be asked why the Indian government executed Afzal Guru now," said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director. "No one argues that those who engage in serious crimes shouldn't be punished, but the death penalty is brutal and irreversible, and there is no convincing evidence to suggest it serves as a deterrent."
Under Indian law, the death penalty is supposed to be carried out only in the "rarest of rare" cases.
Afzal Guru was convicted for providing logistical support to those involved in the attack on the Parliament building in New Delhi on December 13, 2001, in which 5 heavily-armed gunmen entered the complex and opened fire indiscriminately, killing 9, including 6 security personnel, 2 parliament guards, and a gardener. All 5 attackers, later identified as Pakistani nationals, were killed. No member of parliament was hurt.
4 people, including Afzal Guru, were charged with conspiring in the attack and waging war. In December 2002, 3 people, Syed Abdul Rahman Geelani, Shaukat Hussain Guru, and Afzal Guru, were sentenced to death. The 4th, Afsan Guru, was acquitted. Geelani was acquitted on appeal. In August 2005 the Supreme Court commuted Shaukat Hussain's sentence to 10 years in prison but confirmed the death sentence of Afzal Guru. An appeal for clemency was filed for Afzal Guru but was rejected by President Pranab Mukherjee on February 3.
Many Indian activists and lawyers have claimed that Azfal Guru did not receive proper legal representation. He did not have a lawyer from the time of his arrest until he confessed in police custody. Azfal Guru claimed that he had been tortured into making his confession, which he later retracted. Several Indian activists and senior lawyers have said that he did not have effective assistance of counsel.
The Indian government has defended the conviction, saying that Azfal Guru was able to appeal his conviction and that his claims were rejected by higher courts. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances as an inherently irreversible, inhumane punishment. In July 2012, 14 retired Supreme Court and High Court judges asked the president to commute the death sentences of 13 inmates they said had been erroneously upheld by the Supreme Court over the past 9 years. This followed the court's admission that some of these death sentences were rendered per incuriam (out of error or ignorance). In November 2012 the Supreme Court ruled that the "rarest of rare" standard for capital punishment had not been applied uniformly over the years and the norms on the death penalty needed "a fresh look."
"India should end this distressing use of executions as a way to satisfy some public opinion," said Ganguly. "It should instead join the nations that have chosen to abolish capital punishment."
(source: Human Rights Watch)