By D N Singh
A plea, citing Kaur’s judgment, said: “the Right to Life including the Right to Live with human dignity would mean the existence of such a right up to the end of natural life. This also includes the right to a dignified life up to the point of death including a dignified procedure of death. In other words, this may include the right of a dying man to also die with dignity when his life is ebbing out.”
The above refers to a plea before the Supreme Court where the issue is about an alternative capital punishment which can be less painful than hanging the accused by the neck.
It is absolutely correct when the Supreme Court said that it is open to the setting up of a panel on experts, while the Centre need to initiate discussions and collect relevant information to examine if there is a less painful method alternative to hanging by the neck to execute the death penalty.
That is the human rights part of the narratives which somehow misses on the dignity and pain that a victim has to live with. So, the question is whether such panels would go to suggest that how a perpetrators of a crime should adhere to so that the victim lives with dignity and in a less painful manner.
But, contrary to all that, either dignity or less painful, a victim has no panel to look up to. Because, it is in the minds of the perpetrator of the crime which have crossed all the boundaries of humanity while committing most heinous crimes, let alone ‘dignity’.
It is not a thing like tit-for-tat but the punishments are given as a justice to the family of the victim or to the victim and, making the necessary awareness and fear among such perpetrators or others of their kinds. It is, perhaps, message for the elements who live within the subconscious of a bad and can commit such acts. And guilt never touches them by a whisker even.
How to moderate the capital punishment other than hanging thus making it less painful and undignified is what the issue is all about.
There will a hue and cry from Human Rights activists if a accused is shot dead or flogged to death or stoned to death. So that leaves other options such as laid to rest forever by some clinical administration like mercy killing or last but not the least, lifelong imprisonment which would hardly be a punishment for such accused who have committed rare of the rarest crimes.
Such beastly perpetrators do not come under the definition of dignity so why a scruple like dignity in their case.
Examples are many but the space does not require a mention here.
