Case of garden-variety killing?

Case of garden-variety killing?

FPJ BureauUpdated: Saturday, June 01, 2019, 06:53 PM IST
article-image

When a death sentence is not awarded, it means a reduced punishment, which implies that the crime is not recognised as grave enough. This is the problem.
Sushil Sharma’s death sentence has been commuted to life imprisonment. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled that the infamous star of the Tandoor murder case would not hang, because his crime did not qualify as “rarest of rare.” Sushil Sharma, a Youth Congress leader, had merely murdered his wife Naina Sahni, chopped her body into little pieces, carried the pieces in a sack to the restaurant he owned and roasted them in the tandoor to destroy evidence. This was not bad enough to attract the death penalty, said the SC bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam, Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai and Justice Ranjan Gogoi. Because there was a ‘mitigating factor’: “It is not a crime against society, but it is a crime committed by the accused due to strained personal relationship with his wife.”
In 2003, a trial court had slapped the death sentence on Sharma for the 1995 murder. In 2007, the Delhi High Court had upheld it. “Society will be shocked if the extreme punishment is not awarded for this act of butchery,” the HC bench headed by Justice R S Sodhi had said then, explaining why the death sentence was well-deserved in this gruesome case.
No one has a clue as to what “rarest of rare” means. It depends on the judge. The SC had tried to define it as murder “committed in an extremely brutal, grotesque, diabolical, revolting or dastardly manner”, or a murder where the motive betrayed depravity and meanness, etc. It still left too much to the judge’s preference. Similar crimes got dissimilar punishments. Judgments revealed religious prejudice and cultural bias. There were power games, political expediencies, the demands of populism.
Last year, the Supreme Court had called for examining how we decide on “rarest of rare.” Also, 14 former Supreme Court judges had appealed to President Pranab Mukherjee to commute to life the death sentences of 13 convicts. They were sentenced to death by mistake, the judges revealed. Two others had also got death by error, but sadly, they had already been hanged.
Does reserving death for the “rarest of rare” cases actually deliver justice? How can a horrendous crime become less grave just because it is not very rare? Murdering your wife (as Sushil Sharma did) is not that rare, so is it a lesser crime? Murdering minorities in orchestrated mob violence or killing lovers for defying their ‘khap panchayat’ happens often, so wouldn’t attract capital punishment? There are judges who believe that honour killings should get the death penalty. But such killings are commonplace in many parts of our unfortunate land. So what is “rarest of rare”?
The problem is compounded by ‘aggravating and mitigating factors.’ The court yesterday declared that Sushil Sharma’s mitigating factor was that the crime was committed “due to strained personal relationship with his wife.”
So every time we have a strained relationship with anyone, we can murder the person and get a reduced sentence? The SC also said that this was “not a crime against society.” When does a crime against an individual become a crime against society? And do all those guilty of crimes against society actually get death? What about all those encounter cops and murderous politicians and netas who orchestrate mass murders and sectarian violence?
Take the judgment on Dara Singh, the Bajrang Dal leader convicted of burning alive Christian missionary Graham Staines and his sons Philip, 10, and Timothy, 6. You remember the case of course. As the Staines slept in their car at night, Dara Singh and his goons had crept up, used the car’s petrol to set it afire, and blocked their victims’ escape. But Dara Singh did not deserve to die, the Supreme Court had ruled, because of “the aggravating as well as mitigating circumstances.” And because “the intention was to teach a lesson to Graham Staines about his religious activities, namely, converting poor tribals to Christianity”, Singh deserved life. The wording was changed later, I think, but the ruling remained the same.
Similarly, the SC had commuted to life the death sentence of Santosh Singh, convicted of stalking, raping and murdering his classmate Priyadarshini Mattoo. Singh is the son of an inspector-general of police. The court announced that because this depraved murderer had meanwhile married and become “the father of a girl child,” he deserved to live.
So would I want these awful people to hang? Am I happy that the brutal rapists and murderers of Nirbhaya in Delhi got the death sentence? When a death sentence is not awarded, it means a reduced punishment, which implies that the crime is not recognised as grave enough. This is the problem. I am against the death penalty, but I am also against double standards. Which is why I believe that people like Maya Kodnani, guilty of mass murder in Gujarat in 2002, or Dara Singh, or Santosh Singh or Nirbhaya’s rapists must get the death penalty. Because as long as some people are being sentenced to death, others accused of crimes as bad or worse, need to get the same punishment.
But more importantly, we need to put an end to this culture of violence. We need to deliver real justice, not give in to bloodlust and revenge. Especially because we are not competent enough to play god. The undeserving are executed by the state. Innocents – usually the disempowered or Muslims or lower caste Hindus – are routinely sent to prison, sometimes even to death row, often deliberately framed by powerful folk.
Deciding who will hang and who will live has become so arbitrary that it undermines justice, encourages inequality and challenges the credibility of the state. Among all the reasons that make me anti-death penalty, the strongest is my belief that a callous, careless, corrupt, prejudiced and easily persuaded system like ours does not deserve the right to dole out death to anyone.
Besides, our argument that as long as we have terrorism we must have the death penalty makes no sense. A terrorist, especially a ‘fidayeen’, does not care. He wants to sacrifice his life and become a martyr anyway.
No, we are actually seeking vengeance in the name of justice. We brandish ridiculous ‘aggravating and mitigating factors’ to defend the indefensible. Like saying that Sushil ‘Tandoor’ Sharma’s crime is not ‘rarest of rare’ because it was not a crime against society and he had merely killed his wife because they had marital problems.
Once we abolish the death penalty and make lifelong imprisonment the highest punishment, we would not need to cheat outrageously to save the life of the convict, we could simply concentrate on justice delivery.

Antara Dev Sen is editor, *The Little Magazine*.
Email: sen@littlemag.com

   Antara Dev Sen

RECENT STORIES

Editorial: Need To Look After The Aged

Editorial: Need To Look After The Aged

Analysis: Anonymous Electoral Bonds Reined In — But What About Anonymous Cash Donations?

Analysis: Anonymous Electoral Bonds Reined In — But What About Anonymous Cash Donations?

Editorial: Government Cannot Be Run From Jail

Editorial: Government Cannot Be Run From Jail

Decentralisation Can Build Better Cities

Decentralisation Can Build Better Cities

Analysis: Elections Are The True Test Of Democracy

Analysis: Elections Are The True Test Of Democracy