Death Penalty: Deterrent or Deadwood [Milind Rajratnam]

Introduction: The recent execution of the four convicts of the Nirbhaya case at the hands of the judiciary was celebrated all over India but will this decision make this country any safer for women or deter people from committing such heinous offences? Can death penalty be considered an effective deterrent? The simple answer to these...

Evaluating the Suitability of the Death Penalty for Child-rape: A Comparative Analysis [Natasha Singh]

INTRODUCTION In August 2019, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act, 2019 was promulgated. This Act altered and strengthened many of the existing provisions relating to child sex abuse laws in India, but most notably, introduced a death penalty for the aggravated sexual assault of a child.[1] As the POCSO (Amendment) Act came...

Rational Contractarianism and The Death Penalty [Saloni Srivastava* & Nikhil Pandey** ]

INTRODUCTION Every scheme of punishment stands in need of justification. It is argued that contractarian theory provides adequate and better justification for infliction of the death penalty than either retribution or deterrence. Before going into the question of the validity of the death penalty, the validity of any punishment, howsoever small, is required to be...