Editorial: Capital crimes

In a baffling interpretation of crime and punishment in India, two judgments delivered this week, highlighted the chasm separating our expectations from the law and order machinery, and the delivery mechanism employed as part of following due process. In the first instance, a Kolkata court sentenced Sanjay Roy, a former civic volunteer with the Kolkata Police, to life imprisonment until death after he was convicted of raping and murdering an on-duty doctor at the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in August last year. The Additional District and Sessions Judge in Sealdah, stated that the crime did not fall under the 'rarest of the rare' category, which justified the decision to not impose the death penalty, adding that society must rise above the 'primitive instinct' of an eye for an eye.

In a diametrically opposite turn of events, a court in Kerala sentenced a woman named Greeshma (24) to death for the murder of her boyfriend in 2022, stating that the manner of the killing (slow poisoning through a herbicide) was ‘brutal, diabolical and revolting', which shocked the conscience of the community. The court also sentenced her uncle, the third accused in the case, under section 201 of IPC for destruction of evidence to three years of imprisonment and a fine of Rs 50,000. The woman had sought leniency in sentencing by citing her academic achievements, lack of prior criminal history, and the fact that she is her parents' only daughter.

In response to the RG Kar verdict, members of civil society groups alleged that the CBI did not look into the angle of larger conspiracy in the case leading to only one person being punished by a court. A statement released by activists called out the CBI's failure in probing certain issues like delay in lodging of FIR after the remains of the victim was discovered, the crowding of individuals at the crime scene, the subsequent vandalising of the premises, the reason behind hasty cremation, and the state's role in the entire episode.

It is worth noting that in the aftermath of the incident, the West Bengal Assembly in September 2024, passed the Aparajita Bill which seeks capital punishment for rape convicts if their actions result in the victim's death or leave her in a vegetative state and stipulates life sentence without parole for other perpetrators. The Calcutta High Court has now granted permission to the West Bengal government to file an appeal against the Sealdah court order. One might recall that following the outpouring of grief and anger in the aftermath of the Nirbhaya episode in 2012, the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance, 2013, was promulgated. It provided for an amendment of the IPC, Indian Evidence Act, and Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, on laws related to sexual offences, and has a provision for the death penalty in cases of rape.

Capital punishment by nature is a contentious subject that evokes impassioned reactions from both sides of the fence — those in favour, and those against. Had the supposedly lone perpetrator in the RG Kar case been sentenced to death, it might have provided succour to the families of such victims. But when one considers the question of delivery of justice, especially with regard to this case, there seem to be several loose ends that do not add up. It seems like a collective failure of our legal mechanism, which had to contend with a slipshod investigation and a tone-deaf verdict.