Viability of Capital Punishment in human rights era

The question of abolition of capital punishment has been the most debatable question and brings
lots of emotion and sentiments. There are people who are in favour of abolition and there are
others who try to defend capital punishment or death-penalty. As far as India is concerned, the
Honorable Supreme Court of India in its 1980 judgment in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab has
given that the death penalty should only be given in the rarest of rare cases. But judging the
case as rarest of rare is in itself subjective and the Indian courts have had varied interpretations in
various cases. There is ambiguity in the judgment from the beginning. Hence, this defence in
favour of death penalty is really very poor.
Secondly, India is a party of International Convention on Civil and Political Rights that requires
countries to move towards the abolition of capital punishment. In recent times, the argument for
the abolition of the death penalty is being increasingly voiced in the language of human rights
rather than on religious or moral grounds. The movement for abolition of Death Penalty cannot
be separated form the movement of Human Rights. The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights (Article 3) recognized each person's right to life and categorically states further, Article
5, "No one shall be subject to torture, or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment."
However, much remains to be done as India has not yet ratified the Second Optional Protocol to
the Convention and in Nov 2010, it even voted along with Saudi Arab and China in opposition to
the UN resolution for a moratorium on the death penalty.
In this context, Report of Law Commission India setup in 1967, said that Having regard to the
conditions in India, to the variety of the social upbringing of its inhabitants, to the disparity in the
level of morality and education in the country, to the vastness of its area, to the diversity of its
population and to the paramount need for maintaining law and order in the country at the present
juncture, India cannot risk the experiment of abolition of capital punishment.
So, the general intellectual thought in this regard is against the abolition as they consider it a risk
to the National Security.
However, we should also not forget that 139 countries world-wide have taken this risk and
abolished capital punishment altogether.
As per the report of Amnesty International that more than two-thirds of the countries in the
world have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice.
So, updating stat, 140 countries have abolished the death penalty and this number is not
declining. It is increasing year after year since 1976, when Portugal abolished the death penalty
for all crimes

Moreover capital punishment is only on papers in India right now, as it is clear from the fact that
Indian courts have sentenced near about 29 death sentence in last decade out of which only one
person has been executed till date and the remaining are just on papers. In a recent judgement
given by Session judge, kathua (j&k) in which six out of seven accused were granted death
penalty (seventh one has already expired) but as is the condition prevalling in india, this sentence
is also just on paper, to execute them is too hard on the part of concerned authority. Apart from
that afzal guru has been awarded capital punishment since 2006. But till date there is no
execution of that sentence because execution of afzal guru is now only a question of executing a
crimnal, but a senstive poltical issue.
In India controversy wth regard to death penalty is complicated and confused with political
issues the cases like Afzal Guru, Rajiv Gandhi and Balwant Singh Rajoana clear example of rule
of law being over taken by political and regional issues, ignoring human sentiments.