While commuting death sentence, Supreme Court debates need for capital punishment

The Supreme Court on Wednesday commuted a death sentence to life term for a man from Chhattisgarh convicted of three murders. But while doing so, one of the judges triggered the debate on whether death penalty is needed at all. The judge, however, failed to get support of other two judges on the bench, who were of the view that the issue of capital punishment needs no re-examination at this stage.

Channu Lal Verma was the convict who was spared the gallows. He was convicted of multiple murders by two successive courts — trial court of Durg in June 2013 and Chhattisgarh High Court in April 2014. For four years, the appeal dragged in Supreme Court though the incident dated back to October 19, 2011.

Finding fault with the HC verdict, the apex bench of Justices Kurian Joseph, Deepak Gupta, and Hemant Gupta unanimously struck down death penalty on two counts.

The HC, in their view, did not weigh the possibility of the convict's reform as the jail report showed him to have good behaviour. Moreover, he had no past criminal record except for a case under rape (IPC Section 376) that was found to be a false implication leading to his acquittal.

The bench said, "The fact that the prisoner has displayed good behaviour in prison certainly goes on to show that he is not beyond reform."

While dealing with death row convicts, the bench was of the firm view that the assistance of a psychological/psychiatric assessment and evaluation should be taken in order to conclude there is no possibility of reform in a prisoner. This too was not done in the present case, the bench added.

The convict will now serve his entire life in jail, although the possibility of him being released was kept open by way of remission granted by state. He had attacked a couple and their daughter-in-law with a knife and then entered the house of another woman and assaulted her too. One of the victims in the case had lodged a false rape case against the convict. Three persons involved in the incident died, while three others sustained grievous injuries.

Justice Joseph, after concluding on the convict's punishment, quoted a Law Commission report of 2015 to suggest that "the time has come to view the need for death penalty as a punishment, especially its purpose and practice." He felt that death penalty may be resorted to only in terrorism cases as such a harsh penalty had not proven a deterrent to other crimes. However, this demand was blunted by the other two judges who penned a single line of dissent refusing to subscribe to the view of Justice Joseph.