“Our worst enemies couldn’t have done it better,” was how eminent jurist Fali S Nariman reacted to the manner of execution of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, without properly communicating it to his family.
“These things have to be thought out from a humanitarian aspect. You may certainly hang somebody because the President has refused his mercy plea. At the same time, humanitarian concepts are not alien to India,” Nariman told Karan Thapar in the Devil’s Advocate programme on CNN-IBN.
“Our worst enemies couldn’t have done it better. The way it was done. It was unfortunate. I am sure they did not think it out.”
He said the home minister could not be directly held responsible but can be indirectly held responsible for the action, as it was “absolutely callous”. “They have just not done their home work. As in many other things, they do not do their homework. It is very unfortunate. There is something wrong with the whole administrative set- up,” Nariman said, adding that the manner in which Afzal’s execution was implemented had embarrassed India.
Nariman said he would be “greatly embarrassed” if he was in the government. “I wouldn’t be able to answer truthfully,” he said and shared the view that it was a “blot on our democracy and our sense of justice system”.
Nariman replied in the affirmative on being asked if the state had diminished itself by failing to live up to this minimum standard of expectation to allow a dying man to bid farewell to his wife and son. “Yes, but not consciously,” he said.
Asked whether time has come to abolish death penalty, he said, “Judges are not agreed on it, people are not agreed on it, Presidents are not agreed on it. It is a very doubtful situation.
“My position is that in India, it is perhaps better to leave the death penalty as it is under the present conditions.”
Referring to the principle of “rarest of rare” test, he said: “Rarest of rare, whatever that may mean and leave that to... It may mean one judge saying it is rarest of rare while another says it is not. But let us leave it as it is. As we don’t have about 3,000 executions a year as people have in other countries.”
Nariman said there was a need to make life sentence mean the whole life by codifying it by way of legislation so that no state has the authority to get the convict out.
“The prerogative of mercy which is also a constitutional prerogative is also removed by some means, which it can be done if you want to do it. It can only be under those circumstances and not otherwise (that death penalty be abolished),” he said. “There should be a guarantee he (convict) will not come out,” he said.
“These things have to be thought out from a humanitarian aspect. You may certainly hang somebody because the President has refused his mercy plea. At the same time, humanitarian concepts are not alien to India,” Nariman told Karan Thapar in the Devil’s Advocate programme on CNN-IBN.
“Our worst enemies couldn’t have done it better. The way it was done. It was unfortunate. I am sure they did not think it out.”
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He said though the decision to hang Afzal on February 9 was communicated to his family through Speed Post, according to the jail manual, nothing stopped the authorities from informing them through a telephone call. The noted jurist said communicating through telephone was given a go-bye as “some government minion must have thought that Afzal Guru will obtain a stay against the death warrant by moving the court.”
He said the home minister could not be directly held responsible but can be indirectly held responsible for the action, as it was “absolutely callous”. “They have just not done their home work. As in many other things, they do not do their homework. It is very unfortunate. There is something wrong with the whole administrative set- up,” Nariman said, adding that the manner in which Afzal’s execution was implemented had embarrassed India.
Nariman said he would be “greatly embarrassed” if he was in the government. “I wouldn’t be able to answer truthfully,” he said and shared the view that it was a “blot on our democracy and our sense of justice system”.
Nariman replied in the affirmative on being asked if the state had diminished itself by failing to live up to this minimum standard of expectation to allow a dying man to bid farewell to his wife and son. “Yes, but not consciously,” he said.
Asked whether time has come to abolish death penalty, he said, “Judges are not agreed on it, people are not agreed on it, Presidents are not agreed on it. It is a very doubtful situation.
“My position is that in India, it is perhaps better to leave the death penalty as it is under the present conditions.”
Referring to the principle of “rarest of rare” test, he said: “Rarest of rare, whatever that may mean and leave that to... It may mean one judge saying it is rarest of rare while another says it is not. But let us leave it as it is. As we don’t have about 3,000 executions a year as people have in other countries.”
Nariman said there was a need to make life sentence mean the whole life by codifying it by way of legislation so that no state has the authority to get the convict out.
“The prerogative of mercy which is also a constitutional prerogative is also removed by some means, which it can be done if you want to do it. It can only be under those circumstances and not otherwise (that death penalty be abolished),” he said. “There should be a guarantee he (convict) will not come out,” he said.