The law commission has recommended abolishing the death penalty in all cases except those with charges of terrorism and waging war against the state.
In its report submitted to the government, the panel held that capital punishment was constitutionally unsustainable. India is one of 59 countries where the death penalty is still awarded by courts.
The hanging of 1993 Mumbai blasts convict Yakub Memon in July had stoked a recurring debate on abolishing the death penalty in the country. At present, the death sentence is given in the rarest of rare cases.
“Snatching away somebody’s life for crimes committed is not in consonance with the evolving jurisprudence, which embraces in its scope measures to reform the person and transform psychology in tune with the values of compassion and humanism,” a resolution by Communist Party of India parliamentarian D Raja read after Memon’s hanging.
Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru and 2008 Mumbai terror attack convict and Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab were hanged in India in recent years.
A deputy registrar in the Supreme Court had quit citing his differences with the court’s verdict rejecting the last-ditch plea of Memon, the lone death row convict in the March 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, against his death warrant.
Memon was hanged in the Nagpur Central Jail early on Thursday, after a prolonged legal battle that continued till barely a couple of hours before his execution.
The day saw an unprecedented hearing being held at the Supreme Court at 3 a.m. when the court rejected Memon’s plea seeking postponement of his hanging by 14 days.
Hours later, Memon was sent to the gallows at 6.35am, ironically, on his 54th birthday – and was pronounced dead at 7.01am by a medical team present there.