REMEMBER THE Dhananjoy Chatterjee case in 2004, when he was hanged to death for raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl in 1990. Teenager Hetal Parekh, who was the victim, received justice after 14 long years when Dhananjoy was awarded the capital punishment in the year 2004. This is not the only case of delayed justice; we have many such Hetal Parekhs who are yet to receive justice. Capital punishment is a debatable topic in India. The Indian justice system is not as stringent as China and the US where people are executed on a daily basis and even people, evading taxes are also executed as a punishment. China is notoriously known as the country for capital punishment but India abides by the Supreme Court ruling of 1983 that said that death penalty should be awarded at the "the rarest of rare cases.”

 As reported by timesofindia.com, five people were given the death sentence today for raping and murdering an eight-year-old girl. Special Judge Sanjeev Fauzdar sentenced Jeetu, Pankaj, Shyam Singh, Rajesh and Bantu to the gallows for abducting and raping a minor on July 1, 2009. Although there are a number of cases like the Ajmal Kasab case, the Priyadarshini Mattoo and the Mohammad Afzal Guru case where every criminal is awarded the capital punishment, yet everyone from the above said list is alive. The justice system goes into a limbo after the ruling of a case.

One feels for the victim’s family as these criminals’ appeal to various courts and earn time for their lives. Take the case of Priyadarshini Mattoo, who died because the criminal, Santosh Sigh was besotted with her and just because she was not agreeing to his advances, he raped and murdered her. He was arrested but because of his influential background he appealed from one court to the other. In the meantime he married and started practising law. Although he was awarded a death penalty on October 30, 2006, yet he appealed to the Supreme Court and his death penalty was reduced to life imprisonment.

If we go by statistics and compare China to India we would see a lot of differences. The Indian government official statistics claim that from 1947 only 52 people have been executed, however, the People's Union for Civil Liberties showed that 1,422 executions took place in 16 Indian states from 1953 to 1963, and has suggested that the total number of executions since independence may be as high as 3,000 to 4,300. In China, the number of people executed in 2007 was between 5,000 and 6,000, although the actual data for each year is not available.

Many feel that a harsh execution punishment in India would eventually have an effect on the criminals and many would not commit such heinous crimes. Criminals know the lacunas and the loopholes in our justice system that eventually help them evade strict justice. This is one of the reasons why influential people do not mind taking the life of a Bhanwari Devi or Jessica Lal.