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Politics of death sentences in India
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that if the Tamil Nadu and Punjab legislatures can ask for the
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Pal Singh Bhullar, why should those Kashmiris be pilloried who
want a similar reprieve for Afzal Guru, the terrorist »
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New Delhi: Death
sentence is judicial murder, says former Supreme Court judge K.T.
Thomas, who headed the bench that pronounced death punishment to
three conspirators in Rajiv Gandhi's assassination.
"Death sentence is no punishment," Thomas, 74, told IANS in an
interview over the phone from Kottayam in Kerala. "It is a
judicial murder committed with the protection of the society."
According to Thomas, world opinion is turning against the death
penalty with more and more countries abolishing it.
"In India too the debate is active among rights activists,
judicial circles and civil society," Thomas said. "But ultimately,
it is a political decision."
If he was against the death sentence, why did he agree to awarding
death penalty to the three Rajiv killers -- Murugan, Santhan and
Perarivalan?
"Because I took oath to discharge my duties as per the
Constitution and the prevailing laws," replied the former judge.
"Whatever extreme may be my individual views, as a judge, I had to
function as per the existing laws."
He said punishment had a three-fold objective: reformation,
deterrence and retribution. The rule of retribution -- a tooth for
a tooth, an eye for an eye -- is increasingly considered
uncivilised.
"Then is the case of reformation. If a person is eliminated where
is the opportunity for reformation?" he said.
Experience and studies have proved that death punishment have not
worked for deterrence too, Thomas said.
He recalled the experience of erstwhile princely states of Cochin
and Travancore where death penalty was abolished in 1940 but
restored when they became part of the Indian republic in 1950.
Records show that there were a higher number of murders in the
1950s than in the 1940s when there was no capital punishment. "So
the theory of deterrence is not valid in many places and periods",
he said.
He said the simple test for death sentence was visualising our own
children in the situation. "Our children commit mistakes and we
want to reform them through punishments. But do we want to kill
them?"
In 1999, the three-member supreme court bench comprising Thomas,
Justice D.P. Wadwah and Justice S.S.M .Quadri had awarded death
punishment to Murugan, Santhan, Perarivalan and Murugan's wife
Nalini in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
Thomas had dissented on death punishment to Nalini while the other
two judges were for capital punishment for all four.
Nalini's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment as President
Pratibha Patil accepted her mercy petition. The petition was
recommended by Rajiv's wife and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
"I found Nalini was acting like a robot and did not know till the
last hour that she was to kill Rajiv Gandhi at Sriperumbudur in
Tamil Nadu on 21st May,1991." Thomas told IANS about his dissent.
If both Murugan and Nalini were to be killed their child would
have been an "orphan made by law ", he added.
With the president rejecting the mercy petition of the trio, they
were to be hanged Sept 8 this year. However, the Madras High Court
Sept 1 stayed their execution for eight weeks. The Supreme Court
will hear a plea to transfer the petition on Oct 19 .
"It was my misfortune to have presided over the bench which gave
the death penalty to the four accused. But I had to discharge my
duties," Thomas said about the 1999 verdict.
"The debate over the suitability and ethics of the death sentence
is picking up in India," he said. The Supreme Court had
deliberated the issue during the Bachan Singh case in 1983 and
directed that death penalty should be awarded only in the 'rarest
of the rare cases', he recalled.
Thomas, a practising Christian, had courted controversy recently
when he said at a function in Kochi that the "smear campaign" that
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was responsible for the
assassination of Mahatma Gandhi was "baseless". RSS chief Mohan
Bhagwat was also present at the function.
An alumnus of the C.M.S. College, Kottayam, he has often
criticized Christian educational institutions "indulging in
commercial practises" and has suggested that minorities should
give up the special rights given by the Constitution.
(George Joseph can be contacted at george.j@ians.in)
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