CAPITAL PUNISHMENTS IN INDIA: AN ANALYSIS IN THE LIGHT OF THE HANGING OF YAKUB MEMON

ABSTRACT Capital Punishment is to be very sparingly applied with special reasons in cases of brutal murder and gravest offences against the state. About retention or abolition of capital punishment, debates are raging the world over amongst social activists, legal reformers, judges, jurists, lawyers and administrators. Criminologists and penologists are engaged in intensive study and research to know the answer to some perennially perplexing questions on Capital Punishment. (A)Whether capital punishment serves the objectives of Punishment? (B) Whether complete elimination of criminals through capital punishment will eliminate crime from the society?(C) Whether complete elimination of crime from society is at all possible or imaginable? Human beings are neither an angel capable of doing only good nor are they demons determined to destroy each other even at the cost of self destruction. Taking human nature as it is, complete elimination of crime from society is not only impossible but also unimaginable. Criminologists and penologists are concerned about and working on reduction of crime rate in the society. Criminals are very much part of our society and we have to reform and correct them and make them sober citizens. Social attitude also needs to change towards the deviants so that they do enjoy some rights as normal citizens though within certain circumscribed limits or under reasonable restrictions.But one also has to think from victims’ point of view. If the victims realize that the state is reluctant to punish the offenders in the name of reform and correction, they may take the Law in their own hands and they themselves may try to punish their offenders and that will lead to anarchy.