merciful President bestows life on dead convict...

In olden days, there were some Rulers who were really kind and merciful to their subjects – benevolent persons they were – Indian President Mrs Pratibha Devisingh Patil is aspiring to be one …..  The modern World is one of technological excellence, especially in communication and availability of information – you can access most of the information sitting at home, by just clicking on a mouse – that is only for the common man, perhaps ……………

In this civilized World, we do read of barbaric incidences of killing, mass murders, cruelty against woman, children, elderly people, of some gruesome incidences where some barbaric people torture and kill people for money, lust, anger or other reasons – quite unfortunately there are some who plead mercy even for these hardened criminals forgetting the plight of their victims..  what harm did those innocent victims do, to have been subjected to such inhuman acts in the hands of these hardened blood-thirsty criminals – do the human rights activists have an answer ?

Whatever be the perception, Capital punishment is a legal punishment meted out by Courts for heinous crimes.  Section 302 in The Indian Penal Code, 1860  reads :  -- Whoever commits murder shall be punished with death, or [ imprisonment for life], and shall also be liable to fine.  Section 299 defines "culpable homicide" and section 300 defines culpable homicide amounting to murder. Section 302 prescribes death or imprisonment for life as penalty for murder.  The Supreme Court of India ruled in 1983 that the death penalty should be imposed only in "the rarest of rare cases. Capital crimes are murder, gang robbery with murder, abetting the suicide of a child or insane person, waging war against the nation. 

India has a strong legal infrastructure and there is provision for appeal.  In a Court, the prosecution will have to prove the offence strongly, only then punishments are meted out; there have been many instances where perpetrators of crime have been able to escape for want of evidence or because stricter proof could not be established.  There has also been instances where in the view of Public, Press and some sections of the society, sentence awarded had been shockingly inadequate only because the Court adopts too soft an approach.  So, when death penalty is given, it is after strict legal scrutiny and only when the Courts are satisfied that there is perpetration of  `rarest of the rare cases' crime.

There is another extra-judicial process of appeal for Presidential clemency which Ms Pratibha Patil has recently done.  President has commuted the death sentence of 35 people to life imprisonment, the highest by the country’s any head of state in three decades.  It is reported that almost all the convicts pardoned are guilty of the most blood-curdling crimes.  They include those who had massacred 17 of a family at a marriage function, those who had raped and murdered minor girls and more.  On June 2, Patil gave her pardon to four more - Bandu Baburao Tidke from Karnataka, Buntu from Uttar Pradesh and Lalchand alias Laliya Dhoom and Shiv Lal from Rajasthan.

Tidke reportedly was convicted for having abducted a 16-year-old schoolgirl, raped and murdered her.  UP’s Bantu, on death row since July 2008, was convicted of raping and killing a five-year-old girl.  Bandu Baburao Tidke’s sentence for the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl came from the President’s office on June 2. It has raised doubts about whether the clemency decisions — for many convicted of barbaric mass murder and rape — based on the advice of the Union home ministry, were based on correct information or taken in haste.

What has happened actually, is clemency to a man who is no longer alive ! – Strange, it sounds, but that is how much care and coordination that occurs between various Govt Departments in the State and Centre in extremely serious cases !!!!!!!

Tidke was arrested for rape and murder in 2002. In 2005, he was given the death sentence by the Bagalkot district court. According to police investigation, Tidke, a sugarcane cutter from Beed district in Maharashtra, migrated in 2002 to Hulliyal in Jamkhandi taluk of Bagalkot district, Karnataka. That year, he dragged a 16-yearold girl from a nearby school raped and murdered her.

In Tidke’s case, either the state jail officials or Karnataka’s home department and, subsequently, the Union home ministry had not informed the President’s office about his death on October 18, 2007, aged 31. Sources in the prisons department said Tidke’s file had been moved to the Centre two to three years ago. TOI quotes State prisons minister A Narayanaswamy, that  he would have to check. “It takes some time for the President to consider after a file is moved. I think the file in this case was moved when the convict was alive,” he said.

Going by the occurrence of events, the crime was committed in 2002, an appeal against death sentence was made in 2006; the man died in Oct 2007, supposedly due to HIV+ and on June 2, 2012, President Prathiba Patil commuted his death sentence to life term.  This is not travesty of justice, but utter callousness in cases of such serious nature. 

Government machinery has everything at its disposal and in a World where people travel with laptops, smartphones and more….. the Ministry and Officials concerned did not care to check up the basic facts even – the merciful and benevolent officials bestowing life [sentence] on dead

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.