Public Noose

By Vijay Kumar

CBI chief happy with Delhi High Court order in PriyadarshiniMattoo case

CBI director Vijay Shanker is reported to have said, "The judgment of the Delhi High Court will set a benchmark for trial courts and also investigating agencies to introspect their functioning and bring about overall improvement."

The whole country seems to be happy with the judgement. The two recent death sentences have created so much noise in the country with politicians and social activists joining the fray and news channels and the press fanning the fire of death penalty. Why is the public interested so much in the noose? And can’t this high voltage publicity be cited by the accused/convict as an unfair trial?

While delivering the Afzal judgement the Supreme Court observed,

"The incident, which resulted in heavy casualties, had shaken the entire nation, and the collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if capital punishment is awarded to the offender. The challenge to the unity, integrity and sovereignty of India by these acts of terrorists and conspirators can only be compensated by giving maximum punishment to the person who is proved to be the conspirator in this treacherous act"

The appellant, who is a surrendered militant and who was bent upon repeating the acts of treason against the nation, is a menace to the society and his life should become extinct."

And in the Mattoo case, the High Court observed,

“We are thus of the opinion that for a crime of this sort which has been committed with premeditation and in a brutal manner, the convict deserves no other sentence but death,”

But is killing a criminal a good enough punishment? Doesn’t killing end all his problems? Does death act as a deterrent? Many people will be happy to die rather than spend the rest of their lives inside a prison. So the death penalty may be after all a reward and not a punishment.

Recently Khushwant Singh suggested that instead of death sentence, “Let him languish in a high security prison for the rest of his life and let him do something constructive like teaching children and cleaning latrines morning and evening.”