Should Capital Punishment be Abolished?

Capital Punishment

Capital punishment is one form of punishment by which an offender is sentenced to death for committing a heinous crime. Death penalty as a form of deterrent punishment, especially for the crime of murder and several other crimes like rape, adultery, blasphemy, and crime against the state, has been in existence from time immemorial. However, in recent times. death penalty as punishment for serious crimes has been a subject of intense debate both at national and international levels. Both the sides in favor of abolition or retention of the death penalty has put forward various arguments in support of their contention.


While some countries have abolished capital punishment. Others have retained it. Most of the ' European countries and many states in the USA have abolished it; but almost all Afro-Asian countries have retained it and the Muslim countries particularly practice it routinely. Then some countries have abolished the death penalty not by law but through practice.; though they have
retrained capital punishment in their statute books, they have not carried out the execution of a single prisoner for as long as one can remember. Again, there are instances of some countries abolishing the death penalty for some years and then reviving it under public pressure. Thus, the controversy persists both in abolitionist and retentionist circles.
The argument in favor of the abolition of capital punishment is that the death penalty is irreversible.

While the judicial process is fallible, and,therefore innocent persons may sometimes be executed. The second argument in favor of abolition is that the death penalty serves no real penological purpose. It is now widely accepted that the death penalty is no effective deterrent against heinous Crimes. Thirdly. it is argued that the death penalty is an arbitrary, inhuman and degrading punishment. It nullifies the most accepted objective of punishment. namely, reformation and rehabilitation of law-breakers. Lastly. It is said that retribution or vengeance

no longer a legitimate aim of punishment and therefore, retention of death penalty is unwarranted. There is hardly any evidence to show that death penalty or threat of execution is a more effective deterrent than life imprisonment which usually takes its place.

India like many other countries has witnessd swings of the pendulum between the abolitionists and the retentionists. In independent India, several bills have been tabled and' resolutions adopted in Parliament seeking abolition of the death penalty and two unsuccessful challenges to the constitutional validity of death sentence in the Supreme Court. Subsequently, the Criminal Procedure Code wa amended, rendering death penalty progressively to be an ‘ exceptional rather than a normal punishment for murder. The present trend has been towards the restriction of offenses and occasions justifying the award of a death sentence.

Though the Supreme Court of India has upheld the constitutional validity of capital punishment, affirming that death sentence was the last dreadful deterrent for the underworld goons and anti-social rowdies and that it was the most effective safeguard against terrorism, it is evident that since independence, the use of capital punishment as a measure of social control has been on the de-, cline. While upholding the constitutional validity of section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, the Supreme Court has unequivocally ruled that the death penalty should be used for the “rarest of rare cases”.


The present position in law is that only the Sessions Court can award death penalty, subject to confirmation by the High Courts. There is scope for appeal to the Supreme Court. An appeal to the Supreme Court is mandatory in those cases where the High Court has reversed the Sessions Court’s acquittal and imposed the death penalty or has enhanced the sentence to capital punishment. The Constitution has also conferred the power of clemency on the President of India and the State Governors. A convention has now been firmly established that appeals against death sentence are not dismissed at the the threshold without full consideration; However, as the courts are vested with enormous discretionary power arbitrary ances in awarding capital punishment cannot be totally ruled out. Available evidence suggests that death penalty in fact has sometimes been awarded arbitrarily.

There are several sources of arbitrariness in awarding death penalty. The first is the divergent altitude and social philosophies of individual judges.while some justice are inclined to uphold death sentences, others are similarly disclined.