Does Life Sentence Now Mean 30 Years in Jail?
Bangalore:The Indian judiciary appears to be increasingly reluctant to award death penalty even in the "rarest of rare cases" involving unspeakable brutality. The court now seems to find an alternative for giving the appropriate punishments for ruthless crimes by expanding the life sentence up to 30 years.
The two brutal murder cases which even deserve death sentence are now called for the extended life span. The change in punishment shows court’s effort to impose the deserved punishment to the brutal crimes when it dislikes calling death sentence.
A father who brutally raped and killed his four year old daughter and the guy who committed the terrible murder of his girlfriend after she refused to abort her pregnancy are the two accused, who received rare verdicts.
The two judgments were made within the difference of three days by the bench of Supreme Court Justices B S Chauhan and Ibrahim Kalifulla. The first one was written by justice Chauhan on May 8th and Kalifulla imposed the second on May 11. The two consecutive judgments by Supreme Court show the symptoms of taking new steps by judiciary in its approach to crimes. The normal life sentence punishments are limited to 14 years in India.
The cases show particular stand by court in its principles "life sentence is the rule and death is an exception" and the application says "rarest of rare case". The guiding principles vary in both murders since both touched different levels of morality.
