After the December gang  rape in 2012 of a young girl in a moving bus in Delhi, an incensed public forced the government to amend the rape law. The original law framed by the English stipulated a punishment of 7 years rigorus imprisonment. The Indian parliament after intense debate raised the punishment to life in prison and for more henious crimes leading to death, the punishmemt was raised to death. Asalready specified in the jail manual , in India the punishment of death is to be executed by hanging.

Unfortunately 3 years have elapsed and as yet the Indian judicial system has not been able to digest this law. I say "digest this law", mainly because the Indian judicial system is  so outdated that judges are apt to stay sentences and executions on flimsy reasons and the result is that till date not a single execution has taken place under this law. It is as if the judges themselves are not convinced that the law with the death penality should be enforced. The 4 accused in the Delhi gang rape and sentenced to death have got a reprieve from the Supreme Court and their death sentences are stayed. All this has happened after the case was committed to a fast track court. I wonder what would have happened in case it had been heard in the normal course. Perhaps even 10 years down the line nothing would have happened.

All this makes a mockery of the judicial system. The world and English law has moved ahead, but Indian law seems moored in the 19th century. How antiquated it is can be gauged from the fact, that the murder trial and conviction of the accused in the LN Mishra murder case( former Railway Minister) lasted 34 years. What a traversity of justice that says the "Justice delayed is Justice denied"

The law was also amended that made it mandatory for a repeat offender to be awarded death as a punishment. Here also nothing has happened and in the Kamla Mills case, where one of the rapists was a repeat offender and awarded death, the case seems to be going nowhere.

Indian's are remarkably averse to punish the guilty. One has just to look at the USA, where already in a period of 4 months of this year , 10 executions have taken place.  in contrast in the last 10 years india executed just 3 of who 2 were terrorists. I think the entire judicial system needs to be revamped and vested interests who go by their own thoughts and not of the nation sent home.


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