M A I L B A G

Death penalty is barbaric and pagan

These words of Lawrence Housman's Hangman rang in my ears while reading the articles on “Should capital punishment be scrapped from the statute?” (June 8):

The last time... we hanged a man...innocent...the truth shows clearer on the drop sometimes than in the witness-box. If ‘it was part of the law that judges...be in at the death, there’d be more acquittals, sir.’

Like the Hangman's, the arguments advanced by Justice Kuldip Singh and Justice Ajit Singh Bains are an acknowledgement of the fallibility of human judgement. To err is human after all. These and other voices favouring the abolition of capital punishment are not voices pro-criminal or voices advocating leniency towards criminals. They are instead voices pro-humaneness, pro-compassion and pro-innocence, voices of concern for those after-the-execution of-the-death-sentence- found-innocent who are sacrificed at the alter of law.

On the other hand, Dr V. Eshwar Anand’s call for examining the issue in a dispassionate manner seems to be just a defensive argument. If the lex talionis principle as he advocates is to be followed, then should not the judges who wrongly pronounce capital punishment onto innocents be themselves hanged once their mistake gets discovered? More so the very purpose of punishment which is to correct the erring individual gets defeated if the individual is not given a chance to improve.

BRAHM RAJ SINGH, Patiala

II

Apropos of the debate “Should capital punishment be scrapped from the statute?” (June 8), both Justice Kuldip Singh and Justice Bains have supported the idea of scrapping capital punishment. But they have stressed only one point that it is irreversible and it can't be recalled even if it is discovered later that the accused was innocent.

I would like to ask the learned former judges how many cases were re-opened after they were finalised by the competent authority. It may be an investigation agency, the judiciary or an executive agency. All of them are overburdened with workload.

Once a case is finalised at the highest level, it is rarely reopened even if it is discovered that the case has been wrongly decided. So, whether it is capital punishment or life imprisonment, it is not likely to be reversed once it is decided at the highest level. This is all the more reason why capital punishment should not be abolished from the statute.

Apparently, the writers showed more concern towards the criminal rather than the victim. How many people think of an innocent person killed by a criminal? In case the criminal is not given capital punishment even when the offence is proved, what justification can be given to the widow/ son/ daughter of the victim by society when the killer roams around freely in the same town after his release?

The opinion that only God has the right to give and take the life of a person should be applicable to both the victim and the criminal equally.

If the criminal has a right to take the life of an innocent victim, why his life cannot be taken under the due processes of law?

RAJVINDER GHUMAN, Jalandhar Cantt

Save universities

This has reference to Professor Vikram Chadha's article “Save varsities from bureaucratisation” (June 22). Bureaucratisation and politicisation have eroded the intellectual and academic ethos of the universities.

Nowadays, the universities have become the last choice of the youth. The university faculty positions also do not attract the cream of society. Brilliant students opt for other professions, but not the faculty positions. Trends in job preferences indicate the students’ priority for power, status and assured economic gains.

“Holistic education” has to be a “process” for those imparting and taking it to achieve value-added and value-based education, something like the gurukul system. Lack of vision amongst our teachers has led to the present sorry state of affairs in the universities.

Honestly speaking, quality education, ethical values are all inbuilt in the present education system for both the teacher and the taught. All we need is to take the initiative and make it operational.

Universities are cradles of civilisation for mankind and no society should ignore the signals of this rot for the sake of the prosperity of their progenitors.

Dr S.K. MANN, Ludhiana