Opposing death sentence, former Governor Gopalkrishan Gandhi today demanded that government appoint a high-level commission comprising former Chief Justices and eminent personalities outside law to examine its utility as a deterrent and validity as a punishment.
"Rather than look at the death sentence the presence of which has avenged the Parliament House attack and 26/11, I think we should look at it as something the absence of which would have given Bhagat Singh to a grateful India till well beyond 1947.
"An irrational but not responsible thought tells me that had Shaheed Bhagat Singh not been snatched from us by the noose, this Maulana Azad memorial lecture could well have been given today in Lahore with you Dr Karan Singh in the chair," he said.
Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, was giving the lecture on "Last Words As Those at Death's Door Speak" organised by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR).
He said only good would result if the President of India were to appoint a truly high-level Commission comprising former justices and eminent personages from outside the law to examine with reference to the world trends the utility of death sentence as a deterrent and its validity as a punishment as distinct from revenge.
"Last words of those who were hanged could be the first words for such a Commission to study," he said.
