Abstract

The capital punishment also called as the death penalty. It's the highest penalty awardable to an accused person. Generally, it awarded in extremely "rarest of rare cases" like brutal, ridiculous, diabolical, revolting etc. In the Indian Penal Code 1860 there has some sections which deals with the death penalty for example section 121, 132, 194, 302, 305, 307, 364A, 369 etc. The death penalty was commencing since the ancient Romans and Greeks era. It was mainly used for incurable offenders and in a wide range of offences like treason, murder etc. During the 17th and 18th centuries in England, it was made merely deal with the most heinous crimes of that time. At this time, it has become a most controversial topic in the legal system where human rights are being violated continuously. Therefore, many Criminologist and Socialists have a long demanding for abolition of the death penalty in legal system and so many civilized countries have already been abolished the death penalty to their judicial system i.e. Australia, Congo, France, Italy, Norway, Portugal, and U.K have completely abolished the Capital Punishment due to inconsistent with the human rights requirement. However, According to Amnesty International record presented that the most of executions were taken place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Iraq. In 2007 the UN General Assembly was called a resolution for a moratorium on the death penalty where India voted its against. In 2012 India again voted against the UN General Assembly on the draft regulation to ban the death penalty. The Constitution of India Article 72 confers the pardoning power to the President which is an exclusive power of him and Article 161 provides the pardoning power to Governor and Article 136 gives the special leave to appeal by the Supreme Court of India and this right is applicable while High courts are passing the death sentence against an accused then the accused may file a petition at Supreme Court and if the Apex Court also passes the death sentence thereafter again the accused person can file a review petition at Supreme Court under Article 137. Moreover, the judgement passed the Court then he can be filed a mercy petition to the President and until the reply of the petition his punishment must be barred.

Keywords