The Supreme Court of India has scheduled a significant hearing for October 8 to consider the Central government’s request for updated guidelines concerning the death penalty. These proposed guidelines aim to be more ‘victim and society-centric’ in cases involving heinous crimes that warrant capital punishment.
A bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta, and N. V. Anjaria will preside over this important legal discussion.
The Central government first filed this application in January 2020, asserting that the current guidelines predominantly focus on the accused and convicted individuals, thereby overlooking the perspectives and needs of victims and the wider society.
Back on January 31, 2020, the apex court had agreed to review the application. It also sought input from various stakeholders who were instrumental in establishing the existing 2014 guidelines regarding the execution process for death row convicts.
These foundational guidelines were initially established in the landmark 2014 case of Shatrughan Chauhan v. Union of India.
The court explicitly clarified at that time that while addressing the Centre’s current plea, the convictions and sentences previously handed down in the Shatrughan Chauhan case would remain unaffected.
The government underscored that the death penalty is reserved for crimes that deeply disturb the collective conscience of the court and society.
The Supreme Court noted that the 2014 case had reached its final resolution, with both review and curative petitions having been dismissed.
The Centre emphasized the absence of a fixed time limit for death row convicts to exhaust their legal and constitutional remedies. It passionately argued that the court must now consider the paramount interests of victims and society, urging the establishment of new guidelines that complement, rather than solely focus on, those already in place for the accused.
The application was filed amidst concerns that individuals convicted of heinous crimes were exploiting the judicial process, leading to undue delays.
Specifically, the Centre appealed to the Supreme Court to set a strict seven-day deadline for the execution of condemned prisoners once a ‘black warrant’ is issued. This urgent request was prompted by the significant delays observed in the execution of the four convicts involved in the harrowing 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape-murder case.
The executions in that notorious case were protracted over many months due to the serial filing of review petitions, curative petitions, and mercy pleas by the convicts.
In its plea to modify the 2014 directives from the Shatrughan Chauhan case, the Centre articulated a strong argument: ‘All the guidelines provided are accused-centric. These guidelines, however, fail to account for the irreparable mental trauma, agony, upheaval, and emotional distress suffered by victims and their families, the collective conscience of the nation, and the crucial deterrent effect that capital punishment is meant to achieve.’