Death Penalty News

As courts are deciding the question of execution of Mukesh Singh, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Kumar and Vinay Sharma in the December 2012 gang rape and murder case, the debate on the death penalty in India is once again at the forefront. Public outcry following the incident led almost the entire nation to believe that any punishment short of the death penalty would amount to ‘grave injustice’ for the victim and her family. However, the question as to effectiveness of the death penalty remains unanswered. The disparate impact of the criminal justice system on the poor and marginalised groups is a grim reality in India. The death penalty, similarly, has a severely disproportionate impact on socio-economically vulnerable groups, and this is one of the foremost reasons weighing against the retention of the punishment within the criminal justice system of India.  The Death Penalty India Report 2016 (DPIR) published by the National Law University Delhi, found that nearly 75 per cent ...

This report has been compiled by the Centre on the Death Penalty, National Law University Delhi, for information purposes only. Accessing accurate and updated statistics on the use of the death penalty in India is an enormous challenge. It is almost impossible to state with any kind of certainty the number of death sentences handed out in any given year or even know the exact number of prisoners under the sentence of death at any given point.  Lack of updated records, ineffective data reporting and management practices, barriers to accessing official data that should be in the public domain are some of the reasons that have contributed to this situation. Given that it is the harshest punishment in our criminal justice system, the absence of such basic figures speaks volumes about the level of our engagement with concerns surrounding the administration of this punishment.  Additionally, the fact that there exists no reliable data even on the number of executi...