-PTI Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit on Friday termed the "horrific assault" on the 23-year-old girl as "most painful" incident for her since she assumed the top post in the capital and said she personally favoured death penalty for rapists. She said she hated Delhi being called "rape capital" of India and stressed that "something concrete" must be done to instill confidence among women in the city against the growing fear of...

-DNA Social networking sites are abuzz with the cry of death penalty for the accused of the Delhi gang rape case. However, the major sections applied in the case, which include 376 (2) (G) (gang rape), 377 (unnatural sex), 307 (attempt to murder) and 201 (destruction of evidence) read with 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code, will attract a maximum punishment of life imprisonment for the accused. The sessions court,...

-The Hindu Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14 death-row convicts including Afzal Guru, whose mercy petitions have been turned over to it by the President for fresh advice. The one mercy petition presently pending with President Pranab Mukherjee, after...

-The Hindu There is a need to identify cases in which the courts might have erred in applying the Bachan Singh principle that limits the imposition of the death penalty The Supreme Court’s five-judge Constitution Bench judgment in Bachan Singh (1980) is the source of contemporary death penalty jurisprudence in India. Its major contribution was to limit the imposition of death penalty to the rarest of rare crimes, and for laying down...

-The Hindu By not informing Ajmal Kasab of his right to seek a judicial review of the rejection of his mercy petition, the UPA government has committed a serious wrong The hurried and secretive hanging of Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab is both an administrative wrong and a constitutional impropriety. The Manmohan Singh government and the UPA chairperson, Sonia Gandhi, owe it to the nation and the whole world to explain why their...