Death penalty a relic of past: Gopalkrishna Gandhi

Describing death penalty as a 'relic' and 'residue' from the past, former West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi today said power of Indian President to pardon a death convict is not a power to punish.
Delivering K C John Memorial lecture on 'the violence of death penalty' as part of the Kovalam literary festival here, Gandhi said President of India has the power to pardon. The power to pardon is not the extension of power to punish.
"When a murderer commits a murder...Murderer commits a murder. But when a hangman pulls the chord, all of us pull the chord," Gandhi said.

He pointed out that there are several authorities to punish starting from the lowest to highest.
"But, President's power to pardon is not a finale of that architecture. It is an independent building. Because, pardon is not the summation either in terms of confirmation or modification of punishment. It is a completely independent...," he said.
"It is a relic, a residue from the past. Why is it that we are not able to brush it aside till now ? We had also stopped using handcuffs," he said.

Gandhi said he believe punishment should have some amount of retribution to it.

"There is a kind of attitude which says the person who was wronged has to be compensated for the wrong doing. This retributive philosophy behind is very prominent in many societies," he said.
Former Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfikar Bhutto was hanged for retribution. Bhutto had been told that he had been sentenced to death as those who had been injured by a certain death wanted him to be hanged.
Retribution in India has been hijacked and this was one among the reasons for retention of death penalty, he said.
"Today we are in a danger of seeing that the element of retribution being usurped by communalisation of public perceptions.

"Terrorism has a certain communatarian phase. Retribution is super imposed on that phase. If we say why is that persons belonging to certain community, namely the Muslim community, have outnumbered others in the small number of those who have been sentenced to death, if we ask this question we would be told that it is not our creation, that was not our doing, not our choice," he said.
"What can we do if Pakistan breeds terrorists. The fact is if Pakistan creates terrorists and they happen to be Muslims that is not our fault....," he said.