One cannot go on fighting endlessly for everything- THE HINDU-24-01-2020

Abstract:

Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sharad A. Bobde on Thursday said a condemned person cannot fight the death penalty endlessly and it was important for the capital punishment to reach its finality.

The death penalty, he noted, cannot be questioned at every turn by the convict. “One cannot go on fighting endlessly for everything.”

Why in news?

The death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case of 2012 have been filing review, curative and mercy petitions, which have delayed their hanging.

The oral remarks came a day after the Centre filed an application, in the background of the Nirbhaya case, to modify a 2014 judgment of the court in the Shatrughan Chauhan case.

Cardinal duty:

The CJI stated that it was not for a judge to forgive a crime.
The cardinal duty of a judge was to see if the punishment was proportionate to the crime. The law applied whether the criminal was a first-timer or a hardened one.

2014 guidelines:

The 2014 verdict had issued guidelines, which primarily held that an unexplained delay in carrying out an execution would lead to the commutation of the death penalty to life imprisonment.