penalty: ReportNew Delhi, Dec 8 (PTI) There is no uniform understandingof the requirement of the rarest of rare doctrine in deathpenalty cases and former judges have varied notions on it, areport published by the National Law University said.
The Centre on the Death Penalty at NLU today released areport featuring an opinion study with 60 former Supreme Courtjudges on the criminal justice system and the death penalty inIndia.
"For a significant number of judges, the rarest of therare was based on categories or description of offences aloneand had little to do with judicial test requiring that thealternative of life imprisonment be 'unquestionablyforeclosed'," the report said.
The study records an acknowledgement and concern amongformer Supreme Court judges about the crisis in India'scriminal justice system on account of widespread prevalence oftorture, fabrication of evidence, abysmal quality of legal aidand wrongful convictions.
The comprehensive report was released after consulting 60former judges who had adjudicated 208 death penalty casesbetween them at different points during the period 1975-2016.
"Despite rarest of rare doctrine in death penalty as laiddown by the Supreme Court in the Bachan Singh case, the reportshows that there existed no uniform understanding of therequirements of rarest of rare doctrine," senior advocateRebecca John said during the panel discussion after therelease of the report.
She said death penalty cases must have compulsoryevidentiary hearing.
In the report, 38 judges have acknowledged that tortureof prisoner or undertrials was rampant and almost 43 judgeshave agreed that wrongful convictions are a harsh reality ofthe Indian criminal justice system.
Anuj Bhuwania from Ambedkar University Delhi and thedirector of the Centre Anup Surendranath have alsoparticipated in the discussion on the various aspects of thereport. PTI RRT RKSZMN.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.