One of the men convicted in the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape case has filed a review petition in the Supreme Court on Tuesday against the death penalty he has been awarded. The convict, Akshay Kumar Singh, has argued that since life expectancy is reducing in India due to rising pollution and other issues, why give death penalty.
“[…] Air Quality in Delhi NCR and metro city burst and like a gas chamber and not only this, the water of Delhi NCR and metro city is also full of poison, this fact is proved a by Govt of India in his report, which was submitted in the Parliament House. Everyone is aware of what is happening in Delhi NCR in regard water and air. Life is going short to short, then why death penalty? (sic)” the petition argues.
The petition which is filed through AP Singh, Akshay’s lawyer, also goes on to explain how the average age is reducing, compared to the previous yugas (ages).
“It is mentioned in our Ved, Purans, Upanishad that in the age of Satyug, people lived thousands of years. In Treta Yug, a man used to live for thousands of years...but now it is Kalyug. In this era, age of a human being is reduced much. It has now come down to 50-60 years, and rarely we listen of a person who is the age of 100 years (sic),” the petition says.
It adds that very few people reach the age of 80-90 years. “This is almost a very true analysis,” the petition says, adding that the “stark realities of life” and the adverse situations a person goes through make a person “no better than a dead body.”
There are also other arguments from a human rights and ethics perspective – that capital punishment is a “premeditated and cold blooded murder” by the state in the name of justice; and a simplistic response to complex problems, and a way to get out of getting to the problems’ root causes.
"The state must not simply execute people to prove that it is attacking terror or violence against women. It must persistently work towards systematic reforms to bring about change. Executions only kill the criminal, not the crime. (sic)”
While acknowledging that those guilty of heinous crimes should not go unpunished, the review petition said that death penalty is against right to life, the “ultimate denial of human rights”, and that it should be abolished.