INTRODUCTION
Ever since the enactment of the Indian Constitution in 1950, public awareness of problems with death penalty and prevailing legal standards has evolved significantly. In dozens of countries, democratic governments in the course of conducting a major review of their national constitutions have decided to curtail or abolish the death penalty. Nearly all European and several Pacific Area states (counting Australia, New Zealand and Timor Leste), and Canada have abolished death penalty. The majority of states in Latin America have also absolutely abolished capital punishment, however, a few countries, like Brazil, use death penalty only in special situations, for example, treachery committed during wartime.
In India also, it should be noted that right from the days of the British rule, there has been a strict opposition to the enforcement of capital punishment. For example, in 1931, Gaya Prasad Singh, a member of the Legislative Assembly introduced a Bill in the Assembly which proposed to abolish the death penalty in the country. However, it was overturned. Other significant events were the Supreme Court judgements inJagmohan Singh V State of U.P[1]. and in Bachan Singh V State of Punjab[2]. In these cases the Supreme Court held that death penalty is an exception not a rule and also came up with the doctrine of ‘rarest of rare case’. Thus, these developments in these cases can be regarded as the steps towards an attempt to abolish the death penalty. In retrospect, these cases are neither a small nor the insignificant achievement for the abolitionist.
It is now recognised in both national and international systems that the death penalty has no place in a democratic and civilised society. India is sovereign, secular, and democratic but yet, it is astonishing that India is one of the few countries in the world which still embraces the concept of capital punishment or the death penalty. Through this paper, the Author is going to study what Bentham has said about death penalty and will try to find out its relevancy in India.
Now coming to the theory, since Socrates, philosophers have examined the morality and policy of the death penalty, but Bentham devoted more space to the topic than any of his predecessors. Jeremy Bentham twice undertook to apply his general utilitarian principles of punishment to a critique of death penalty. First was in 1775[3] and the second was in 1831[4]. In his 1775 essay, firstly he explained the distinction between ‘simple’ and ‘afflictive’ death penalties and then also criticised the latter. Then he argued his case against the death penalty on the utilitarian grounds. His second effort in 1831 was entitled as ‘On death penalty’. This effort was mainly devoted against the death penalty on utilitarian grounds as it was made in his earlier effort of 1775, but the style was distinctly inferior then his essay of 1775. Thus taken together Bentham’s 1775 and 1831 essays constitute of the death penalty unique among leading philosophers.
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