Death Penalty Debate reignited as freedom fighter, Says It Is Against The Spirit Of Constitution
The death penalty has consistently been a disruptive theme – those on the side of capital punishment state it is important to convey a message and that it will prevent others from submitting to such acts.
In any case, those opposed to it say that the death penalty is against human rights and that such a discipline is unfit for a cultured society. They likewise contend that information shows that the death penalty has not helped in diminishing the number of offenses.
As the endless discussion proceeds, a freedom fighter has given another edge to it, saying that hanging by the neck is a “colonial hangover.” S Parameswaran Nampoothiri, a freedom fighter from Kerala, has questioned the lawfulness and legitimacy of segment 354 (5) of the CrPC, which stipulated that “when an individual is sentenced to death, the sentence will order that he be hanged by the neck till he is dead.”
Nampoothiri has asserted in his request that segment 354 (5) of CrPC is against the “letter and soul” of the Constitution and is a violation of the basic rights, including under Article 14 (uniformity under the eyes of the law) and 21 (assurance of life and individual freedom).
“The present writ request is viable as it is an issue concerning the life of the residents, an issue contacting the essential highlights and fundamental structure of the Constitution. The petitioner is testing a practice followed, which is in discord with the goals and objectives of the Constitution,” said the request, settled by advocate Wills Mathews.
The request said that such a method for executing convict is “not Indian and a continuation of the colonial hangover,” and practically all popularity based nations have halted this exercise. It said that “condemning an individual to ‘death’ conjuring area 354(5) CrPC….is in conflict with the essential structure of the Constitution of India and furthermore the fundamental highlights of the Constitution of India, its beliefs, values, ways of thinking respected in the Constitution, the Fundamental Rights, the Directive Principles of the Preamble, State policy, including the DNA of the Constitution…”
It further stated, “Regardless of whether in a state where an attempt to suicide it all is an offense, whether the state can end the life of its residents under any conditions, bringing about breaking of its own laws. The request likewise scrutinized the punishing an individual to death “when the state can’t make an individual or offer life to a dead individual.”
“Regardless of whether capital punishment as a ‘discipline’ can be forced on a convict, all the more especially when death isn’t characterized, there are different types of death, with different stages, and in that capacity, there is no transparency about death… there are just ‘vulnerabilities’ about death and post-existence, and being in this way, is it safe to murder an individual thinking about the constitutional values?” asked the solicitor.
This petition comes when the four death-row convicts in the 2012 Delhi assault case have been attempting every single imaginable choice to postpone their executions. The four men who were punished to death in 2013 have been postponing the executions by misusing the legal escape clauses in a steady progression. There is a lot of anger among the local population about delays in the hanging of the convicts.