Law Commission Consultation on Death Penalty

The Law Commission of India has issued a public consultation paper on the death penalty. The Law Commission shall be inviting public opinion on the death penalty. The last such Law Commission Report (35th Report) was published in 1962. Subsequent legal challenges to the death penalty, which have all failed, relied upon this report, which had stated:

“Having regard, however, to the conditions in India, to the variety of 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.”

This current consultation is a re-appraisal of the role of the death penalty in the Indian criminal justice system, especially in light of the growing global consensus that death penalty should be abolished.

The public consultation paper is to be found at this link: http://www.lawcommissionofindia.nic.in/views/views.htm

The 35th Law Commission Report (on death penalty) is to be found here: http://lawcommissionofindia.nic.in/1-50/index1-50.htm