Friday, 17 May, 2024
By: Yash Gupte
The Supreme Court appointed a constitution bench on Monday to lay down certain rules and regulations to award the convict with a real and meaningful hearing before reaching the conclusion of awarding him/her with the punishment of ‘death by hanging.’
The Supreme Court appointed a constitution bench on Monday to lay down certain rules and regulations to award the convict with a real and meaningful hearing before reaching the conclusion of awarding him/her with the punishment of ‘death by hanging.’ The bench, presided over by Chief Justice of India Uday Umesh Lalit, declared that in cases where the death penalty is an option for punishment, the top court must issue a conclusive ruling on various sentencing-related issues. The court further stated that even the Supreme Court had stated that a lower court's order of this nature cannot be reversed merely because the conviction and sentencing decisions were made on the same day. The Supreme Court marked that there had been a difference of opinion among the previous benches of the apex court regarding the amount of time that should be given to the convict to present his/her case who has been awarded with the death punishment by hanging.
The highest court cited the landmark Bachan Singh vs. state of Punjab constitution bench decision from 1980, pointing out that it affirmed the validity of the death penalty with the condition that it may only be applied in the "rarest of rare" cases. According to the court, the current suo moto petition was initiated when it was noticed that there was no standard procedure for separate hearings in death penalty cases.
Considering the importance, nature and effect of the suo moto cognizance taken by the Supreme Court in this matter, Team Cvoter-India Tracker conducted a nationwide survey in which the people belonging to different gender, social backgrounds, age groups, occupations, voting preferences and ethnicities were posed with the question- ‘should convicts be given the death sentence for heinous crimes like premeditated murder, child rape, lynching and gang rape? Different responses were recorded from people belonging to different backgrounds.
Source: Team Cvoter- India Tracker
Majority (84%) of the respondents were of the opinion that the convicts should be awarded with the death sentence for committing heinous crimes like rape, murder and lynching while just 6% responded with a ‘No’ as they were of the opinion that the people convicted for crimes like murder and rape shouldn’t be awarded with the death punishment. On the other hand, 10% of the respondents were not sure of their opinion while some were not aware regarding the matter and responded with ‘don’t know/ can’t say anything.’
Source: Team Cvoter- India Tracker
Among all the respondents, highest percentage of people indulged in Business or those who are self employed (90.6%) are of the opinion that the convicts should be awarded with the death sentence for heinous crimes like murder, rape and lynching. Only 3.3% of the people belonging to this category are against the notion while 6.1% were not sure of their opinion. Eighty Eight percent of the NDA voters are in favor of the notion while 5.4% were against it and 6.5% were not sure or were ignorant about the issue. In case of the opposition voters, majority (80.2%) of them are in support of the death sentence for heinous crimes while just 6.7 % are against it and 13.1% are not sure. In case of Sikhs, low majorities (68%) of the respondents as compared to others are in support of the notion and 13.2% are against it, while 18.3% are not sure of their opinion. Coming over to the Upper caste Hindus, 87% are in favor of the notion and 3.6% are against it, while 9.4% are not sure or don’t know that whether the convicts should be awarded with death sentence for heinous crimes.
The result of the survey clearly shows that the majority of Indians are in favor of death sentence for heinous crimes like rape, murder and lynching.
