-The Times of India NEW DELHI: About one -third of all Mercy Petitions in Independent India have been commuted to life imprisonment with a new report stating that 3534 of 5106 petitions were rejected while 1572 were considered favourably. This is the first such estimate of Mercy Petitions filed since Independence and is based on several sources accessed by the Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) in its report Status of Mercy...
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Press council query on gag order
-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Press Council of India has sought a clarification from the Union government over a gag order the home ministry issued last month to restrict media access to senior officials. In a letter sent yesterday to the information and broadcasting ministry, the council, the statutory body to regulate the print media in the country, sought an explanation on why a "section of the central government had asked senior...
More »‘Just 4 of 26 hanged since ’91 Muslims’ -Himanshi Dhawan
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Just four of the 26 persons executed in India since 1991 belonged to the Muslim community, and yet a perception has been created by some media channels in the aftermath of the hanging of Yakub Memon that members of the minority community are being targeted, said government sources. An internal report by the I&B ministry has taken exception to the "tenor of discussion'' in the four...
More »You were wrong, My Lords -Avijit Chatterjee
-The Telegraph The debate around Yakub Memon’s hanging highlights the many cases of people who were hanged but who should have lived. Indeed, the Supreme Court admitted in 2009 that it had wrongly sentenced 15 people to death in 15 years. Avijit Chatterjee looks at some cases It was a mistake, the Supreme Court later said. But by then it was too late. Ravji Rao, or Ram Chandra, had been hanged to...
More »Convicts can't be hanged secretly and hurriedly: Supreme Court -Amit Anand Choudhary
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Condemned prisoners also have a right to dignity, the Supreme Court has said holding that execution of death sentence cannot be carried out in an arbitrary, hurried and secret manner without allowing death row convicts to exhaust all legal remedies and meet family members. "Right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution does not end with the confirmation of the death sentence. Even in cases...
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