"God alone can take life because He alone gives it...An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." -Mahatma Gandhi

"I do not believe any civilized society should be at the service of death. I don't think it's human to become an agent of the Angel of Death." - Elie Wiesel

Capital punishment or the death penalty is the killing of a person by the process of law as punishment for an offence. It is the pre-meditated and planned taking of a human life by a government in response to a crime committed by that legally convicted person.

Origin:

The history of Capital Punishment is as old as that of mankind. In the Western world the first instance seems to be The Law of Moses, inflicting death for blasphemy. By 1179 B.C. murder was a capital crime among Egyptians and Greeks. In the beginning, offences against religion and morality attracted Capital Punishment. However, the primitive societies soon grew up into kingdoms and consequently criminal law also changed quickly. Whether it was West or East, offences against the King were considered as more serious. Thus, the political offences were also added to the religious and moral offences and Capital Punishment was prescribed for such offences also. With the advent of industrialization and advancement of civilization, Capital Punishment was prescribed for offences against the property and human body. Death sentences were carried out by such means as crucifixion, drowning, beating to death, burning alive, and impalement. Now, in the modern world, capital offences further covered drug-trafficking, hijacking the airplanes, bribery etc. Some Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia even want to add artificial insemination also to the list of capital offences.

Indian Context:

Although India is one of a number of countries around the world which still practises capital punishment, it is rarely used.

A 1983 ruling by the country's Supreme Court stated that the death penalty should be imposed only in "the rarest of rare cases".

Under Indian law, the death penalty can be imposed for:

• murder
• gang robbery with murder
• abetting the suicide of a child or insane person
• waging war against the government
• abetting mutiny by a member of the armed forces

Death penalty in India is still awarded, but rarely. It is carried out by hanging. An attempt to challenge this method of execution failed in the Supreme Court, which stated in its 1983 judgement that hanging did not involve torture, barbarity, humiliation or degradation.

The last execution in India was held in August 2004 when Dhananjoy Chatterjee, convicted of raping and murdering a schoolgirl in 1990, was hanged to death. It was the first such execution since 1995.

Worldwide Trend:

Death sentence is still awarded in 58 countries. It is abolished in 95 countries while 44 countries have not awarded capital punishment during the past 10 years.

Singapore, Japan and USA are the only ‘fully’ developed countries that have retained the death penalty.

The European Union and the Council of Europe both strictly require member states not to practise the death penalty.

Some alternate humane methods:

Countries have moved to more humane executions that include guillotine, long drop hanging, gas chamber, lethal injection.

Arguments: In Favour and Against

Supporters of the death penalty argue that it is justified on the following grounds:

(i) as a means of retribution; (ii) as a deterrent to others; (iii) to prevent any danger of re-offending; (iv) because it's cheaper than keeping people in prison.

However, arguments against death penalty are stronger than in favour of it. It can be objected on the following grounds:

(i) killing someone is always wrong, and two wrongs can never make a right; (ii) there is no evidence of a deterrent effect (indeed the available evidence seems to show there is no such effect); (iii) life without parole is just as effective a way to prevent someone reoffending as executing them; (iv) saving money can never be a justification for taking someone's life; and (v) mistakes are bound to happen, and that means people being put to death for a crime they didn't commit.

Alternatives to Death Penalty:

The most useful and productive alternative would be the life imprisonment without the possibility of parole plus restitution. This alternative not only costs much less than capital punishment, but also keeps the criminal in jail for the rest of his life - so he cannot return back to society. Restitution means that while the prisoner is in jail, he will be put to work - with all the money made going to the family of the victim.

There are other alternatives too like prison with parole. But, this would be problematic because some persons may never change, which makes this a more dangerous and less supported alternative to the death penalty. Another alternative is rehabilitation or reformatories. Though this is a more practical solution, rehabilitating criminals instead of just punishing them but it remains a more dangerous alternative because not every criminal can be truly reformed. Hence, this is probably the least supported alternative to capital punishment.

While it continues to be widely used, the death penalty has been in retreat across the globe over recent years. More than 90 countries have now outlawed the death penalty altogether, and more than two thirds of all states have abolished it either in law or in practice.
And at the end of 2008, the United Nations General Assembly passed the second resolution in 12 months calling for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty as a first step towards total abolition. While the resolution is non-binding, it was passed by an even larger majority than in 2007 (106 votes for and 46 against) and adds further momentum to the abolitionist movement.

So, killing someone in punishment of what he has done is going to serve the purpose. There are other alternatives which needed to be adopted. No one has a right to take one’s life and in the words of Vladimir Putin, the former Russian President:

"The state must not claim the right to take human life away, which belongs only to the Almighty."