Nirbhaya gang rape & murder case: Debate on death penalty continues

A Delhi court Tuesday ordered hanging of the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case triggering debate whether death sentence deters heinous crimes.

While a section of experts hold a contrary view, there are those who favour the retention of capital punishment in the statute book.

Senior advocate Rebecca M John and advocate Avani Bansal were of the view that capital punishments have rarely acted as a deterrent and it was not a solution.

However, senior advocate Vikas Singh said death penalty should remain because it is a way of informing people that something so heinous would be retributed with the same treatment.

John said the need to make work places, streets and the society safe for women and that would eventually act as deterrents to rapes in the country.

"Capital punishments have rarely acted as a deterrent. What we need to do is to make our society, our workplaces, our streets safe for women," she said.

Bansal said that though it was important to punish criminals, death penalty was no solution.

"It is important to punish those who commit heinous crimes but it can never equal to the State taking away one's life. Because the State cannot take, what it cannot give," she added.

Singh, on the other hand, said: "You know that the gravity of this offence is so large, definitely it will have some deterrence on the prospective of criminals indulging in such kind of activities.

"So I think capital punishment should remain and it should be given in appropriate cases especially 'rarest of the rare' as has already been held by the Supreme Court and this (Nirbhaya gang rape) was definitely one such case which can be said to be rarest of rare where capital punishment can be imposed."