EFFECTS OF DELAY IN EXECUTING A DEATH SENTENCE

We come across many people discussing, "Why does it take too long to render justice? Why can't the Court dispose of it soon and avoid delayed justice?" regarding issues like Nirbhaya rape case or any case related to rape for that matter.

The reason why prisoners are on the death row for so long is that they are exhausting all of their possible appeals and requests for clemency and whatever other legal avenue they have. Moreover, the appeals' process takes a long time, often many years. Very often there is a considerable delay in executing a death sentence awarded to convicts. This delay may be attributed to the procedural delays involved in courts and often by mercy petitions of the relatives in a bid to save the life of the convict.

In a rather surprising decision (delivered in February, 1983) Justice O Chinnappa Reddy and Justice R.B. Mishra of the Supreme Court held that if there is a delay of more than two years in executing a death sentence, the appropriate relief is to vacate the death sentence and commute it to life imprisonment. The court held that any delay exceeding two years in the execution of a sentence should be considered sufficient to entitle the person to invoke Article 21 of the Constitution of India and demand quashing of the death sentence.

The cause of delay in such cases is immaterial (T.V. Vatheeshwaran v. State of Tamil Nadu 1982 cri L J 481) The decision in T.V. Vatheeswarans case was however overruled by three-member bench of the supreme court consisting of, Chief Justice Chandrachud Justice Tulzapurkar and Justice Varadarajan only a month later in March 1983, when the court held that a 2 year delay in executing the death sentence does not by itself give a right to the offender to have it converted into a sentence of life imprisonment.

No doubt prolonged delay in an important consideration in such cases but no hard and fast rule should be laid down. It would be an incentive to delay the punishment by two years or more (Sher Singh and others v. State of Punjab 1983 Cr. L J. 803). In Sher Singh case the Supreme Court also reiterated that, the sentence is constitutionally valid and permissible within the constraints prescribed by the Supreme Court (that it should be in post only in the rarest of rare cases).

Following the later decision of the Supreme Court, the full bench of Madras High Court has also held that delay in execution of a death sentence is no ground in itself for modification of such sentences to one of life imprisonment. The circumstances causing the delay are immaterial. (K.G. Pillai V. Government Of India A.I.R. 1986 Mad.204).

Conclusion :

Not only in India but also in all the developed countries, they give all possible chances to the accused to prove his innocence. Therefore, upholding the general rule, 'Let a hundred guilty be acquitted, but one innocent should not be convicted'.