Should India abolish the death penalty?

India retains capital punishment and applies it under the 'rarest of rare' doctrine established by the Supreme Court in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab (1980). In practice, executions are very rare: only eight people have been executed since 2000, across five separate occasions, but courts continue to award the death sentence in extreme cases, and the sentence is frequently commuted on presidential mercy petition.

Abolitionists argue no state should have the power to execute its citizens, that wrongful convictions are irreversible, and that evidence from global experience shows the death penalty does not deter crime. Retentionists argue some crimes, particularly mass murders and child rape, are so extreme that death is the proportionate response and the only way to protect society permanently.

India inherited capital punishment from British rule. The Bachan Singh ruling tightened the criteria to 'rarest of rare': judges must weigh aggravating against mitigating circumstances and reach a near-unanimous conclusion that no lesser sentence will serve. Despite this, the Law Commission of India (262nd Report, 2015) recommended abolishing the death penalty for all crimes except terrorism and waging war, citing wrongful conviction risks and discriminatory application.

The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Amendment (2019) and changes to the IPC (now the BNS) added death as a possible sentence for child rape. The last executions in India were Ajmal Kasab (2012), Afzal Guru (2013), and Yakub Memon (2015), and the Nirbhaya convicts (2020).

• Wrongful convictions cannot be reversed; at least 186 people are estimated to have been wrongfully executed in the US since 1973.
• The Law Commission found death penalty application in India was arbitrary, discriminatory against the poor, and inconsistent across courts.
• No reliable evidence that capital punishment deters violent crime better than life imprisonment.

• Some crimes, particularly terror attacks killing hundreds, or rape and murder of children, are extreme enough that the public and victims' families regard lesser punishment as inadequate.
• Permanent incapacitation: execution is the only guarantee that the offender cannot commit the same crime again.
• Democratic legitimacy: majorities in most polls continue to support capital punishment for extreme crimes.

Two-thirds of countries have abolished capital punishment in law or practice. The European Union requires abolition as a condition of membership. The United States retains it in 27 states, though executions have fallen sharply. China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia carry out the most executions globally. India's rate (very rare executions despite ongoing sentences) sits closer to the de facto abolitionist category in practice, even if not in law.

There is no strong political constituency for abolition in India; it is not a salient electoral issue, and governments of all parties have carried out executions. The push for abolition comes primarily from legal academics, civil society, and international human rights bodies.

This question primarily moves the Authority axis: backing state power to execute reads as accepting a high level of state coercion; opposing it reads as a strong civil-liberties position. It also touches the Tradition axis through attitudes toward punishment, retribution, and reform.