Doubt Regarding Rape Murder And Indian Judiciary

832 votes

I will clarify your doubt in brief. In order to understand the reason why immediate punishment is not given to convicts is because India follows the common law doctrine where a due process has to be followed before punishing someone. This is also considered as Doctrine of Natural Justice. You should study Jurisprudence if you want to go into detail of this. Coming to your query of immediate punishment as per section 366 of Crpc reproduced below :- 1.When the Court of Session passes a sentence of death, the proceedings shall be submitted to the High Court, and the sentence shall not be executed unless it is confirmed by the High Court. 2. The Court passing the sentence shall commit the convicted person to jail custody under a warrant. Therefore when a court of session awards death sentence after the trial, the sentence has to be confirmed by high court of the state. Another thing you should know is that In india as per Bachhan Singh v. State of Punjab case, Supreme court has laid down the law that death sentence shall be granted to only rarest of rare case, where the crime committed should shock the conscious of the entire society. Therefore high courts and supreme courts have to go into the law to understand whether the punishment given is in rarest of rare case during appeal. Sometimes its demoralizing for the society to see the huge delay in punishing the convicts, however you should also see the number of innocent people that are facing false and vexatious cases against them and quick justice in such cases can lead to an innocent man facing punishment. However I still feel that there is delay in our courts system and there should be reform to ensure the trial is done quickly but not hastily. Regards

LawRato LawRato

655 votes

The simple answer to this is that under criminal law, the IPC prescribes only max. punishment. So while the maximum punishment is death penalty in murder/ rape cases, it's not necessary to be awarded. The judge can always give lesser punishment. Further, with Bachan Singh v. state of Punjab (1980), SC has devised a new doctrine i.e. rarest of rare cases. unless, a case is of such grave nature that it comes under rarest of rare cases, death penalty cannot be awarded.

LawRato LawRato