“Intelligence officials should keep a tab on all (except relatives and close friends) who assembled before Yakub Memon’s corpse”.
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“A majority of students reported being raging when a convicted murderer did not receive the death penalty, yet a majority also reported feeling sad when any person was executed”, an abstract of the study said, reflecting the country’s mixed reactions to Memon’s hanging.
Two developments renewed hope of life for Memon. Following a Supreme Court directive, a medical panel has given approval for a 14-year-old rape survivor to have an abortion even after 25 weeks of pregnancy. 3. The mitigating circumstances pointed out in B Raman’s article were not considered at any level. This verdict has been tested and found true on appeal, review and curative.
Besides the ethical issue of capital punishment, they said Memon had been in jail for years, was suffering from a mental illness and that he had been singled out for capital punishment because he was the brother of a principal suspect who evaded police. Going to a different bench of the same court is regarded as “forum shopping” – among the worst unethical practices one can adopt. Yakub too ran away to Pakistan and returned later.
Around 3.30 am, Memon was woken up and permitted to take a bath, offered fresh clothes, breakfast of his choice, as per laid down standard procedures. If that is dismissed as well, matters conclude with a judicially evolved mechanism known as the curative petition where the three senior most judges of the court participate in considering whether an exceptional oversight has led to a miscarriage of justice.
Death sentence of the 10 terrorists, who planted the explosives, was commuted to life imprisonment. As the products of the society they live in, it would be unrealistic to expect the judges to make decisions devoid of any political, religious, or social influences.
For decades India had been reluctant to carry out death sentences, until it voted in 2012 against a UN draft resolution for a global moratorium on executions.
“There is no evidence that death penalty serves as a deterrent, to the contrary in fact”. Indian law recognises unwritten contracts and agreements can be inferred from the conduct of parties. This government had decided they would do it [hang him] within a year of its coming to power.
“Saddened by news that our government has hanged a human being”.
The ruling BJP slammed the leaders opposed to the hanging, Tharoor and Digvijaya Singh were forsaken by the Congress as well, which said it was their “personal views”. The credentials of officers like Raman are personally known to this President. There was no place for reason or argument left.
What ought to be a scrutiny on principle – in parliament and beyond – gets heavily influenced by the specifics of the case hitting the current headlines.
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Unless our courts hold the death penalty to be unconstitutional, abolition needs a new law.
