Thread by @Hareshraichura

Thread to explain "How murders are punished in India, in accordance with degrees of murders and why law to give death sentence to child rapist may not stand scrutiny of Judges, and why there is trend to impose reformative punishments"

1) You may find this thread interesting.

2/ This thread may be long as it is very difficult to explain these concepts in short. But it will Not be a very long thread.

3/ Know that in India, there is no detailed classification of different types of murders as First Degree Murder, Second Degree Murder etc.

4/ In fact, the sections prescribing punishments for murders are not well defined by Law Makers.

5/ The section prescribing punishment for murder was challenged as Too Vague as there is no clarity about when a Judge is supposed to give death sentence and when he is supposed to give life imprisonment.

6/ Instead of striking down the section, the Court clarified that there will be Death Sentence in Rarest of Rare Case and in all other murders, the punishment will be life imprisonment. (Till now, Parliament has made no corrections, hence this judge-made-law prevails.)

7) What is "Rarest of Rare Crime"? If you will check past case laws, you will find different opinions of Judges. (Till now no clarity is provided by Parliament on this issue)

8) There is a section which said that if person undergoing life imprisonment, commits another murder, than he shall be hanged. This again was disagreed by Judges. Jurisprudence says that no Legislature can bind hands of Judge regarding death sentences.

9) As the law stands now, as far as my understanding is concerned, it depends on facts of each cases about when death sentence is to be given.

10/ There were dispute as to how many years are contained in a sentence of Life Imprisonment. Many Stagovernments used to release a life imprisonment convict in 7 years by giving him remissions/ pardons.

11/ So Supreme Court gave direction that a convict who is sentenced to life Imprisonment, should not be given any pardons before he has completed 14 years in Jail..

12/ As the law stands now, for a first degree murder (intentional murder), a Sessions Judge can give either life imprisonment or death sentence.

13/ Here, Life Sentence means whole life. A convict cannot claim any right to be released after 14 years in jail. High Court and Supreme Court has further powers to give directions that a convict will have to undergo minimum 20 years, 30 years or so on.

14/ Parliament has passed law that a child rapist MUST be given death sentence. This law is under challenge.

Jurisprudence clearly says that Legislatures have no powers to bind hands of Judges as to when they have give death sentence.

This law may or may not stand.

15/ There have been lots of research going on about how brain of a person "Trips wiring temporarily" forcing him to commit heinous crime, when his brain is flooded with blind lust passion or rage.

16/ When a judge has to consider whether man should be sent to death, he takes several things into his consideration, including his chances of reform or chances of his repeating similar crimes.

17/ There is a proposal to introduce procedure of examination of convict by a psychiatrist before sentencing him to death.

18/ To improve these laws, the judges and law makers both need to collaborate. We all need a safe society. GPS enabled systems to monitor movements of convicts on bail and 'Persons of Interest (Suspects)' need to be introduced by Govt

#lawyer #law #india

19/ True Story: A Sessions Judge in Meerut sentenced a man to death. Then years later, Judge retired. He started practice in Supreme Court. He used to commute between Meerut and Delhi every weekend.

20/ One day train was very crowded. Judge find no place to sit. A man squeezed himself, made some space and invited judge to sit. As the Judge sat, the man said, "Do you know me? You had sentenced my only son to death?"

21/ The judge froze. He didn't know how to respond. The man continued, "It was good that you sentenced my son to death. Otherwise, the complainant side would have murdered him. Now Supreme Court has converted his death to life and he will soon come home*

Judge told me this story

22/ The sessions Judges are given powers to give death sentences. And they do give death sentences even to gang leaders.

But after they retire, they do not get any protection.

23/ Same is the story of lawyers. A public prosecutor who was prosecuting some hard criminals, was gunned down in court premises. No one bothers.

Every three month, I read about murder of a judge or a lawyer. No one bothers.