NEW DELHI, January 29: "Unprecedented" just about sums the legal reaction to the judgement in the Rajiv Gandhi case as Constitutional and legal experts come to grips with the death penalty imposed on 26 people. The legal eagles feel Capital punishment should only be imposed in the "rarest of rare cases" and the evidence must show direct, clear and significant involvement of each conspirator."Twenty-six persons being sentenced to death in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case reflects the elitist bias of the society. Nobody batted an eyelid when 5,000 Sikhs were killed in the 1984 riots and 70 persons were massacred by Ranbir Sena in Bihar. Just because it is a Rajiv Gandhi or a Rajan Pillai such brouhaha is made," said Prashant Bhushan, an eminent human rights lawyer.
There has only been one conviction so far in the 1984 riots case and the trial is still dragging on, he added. "It is difficult to believe that the evidence in the Rajiv Gandhi case has clearly established the guilt of all the 26 accused,"Bhushan says sceptically.
Terming the judgement as "unprecedented", distinguished constitutional expert Nani Palkhiwala said he would like to go over the evidence before coming to a final conclusion about the sentence.
Capital punishment is not a rarity in the Indian scene with an average of 50 cases carried out every year. In 1996, 67 persons were hung to death and in 1995, 37 persons were awarded death penalty, according to the figures of National Crime Records Bureau. But, what is in doubt in the Rajiv case verdict is what an expert terms the "burden of proof". Is it enough to convict 26 people? It is almost certain that the case will now go to the Supreme Court.
According to experts, the Indian Constitution has enough built-in safeguards against the arbitrary meting out of Capital punishment. "It is imposed in the rarest of rare cases," said RV Pillai, secretary general of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). The Commission is still to take a view on the judgement, he added.
FormerSolicitor-General KTS Tulsi welcomed the judgement maintaining that he was glad that the guilty were being punished in spite of the "interference and hindrance created by the Jain Commission". He added that the imposition of the death penalty on all the 26 accused reflects the fact "that a large organization with a wide network" carried out the killing.
"The brutal matter in which Rajiv Gandhi's assassination was carried out eminently deserves death penalty. It would have been so in any country," he added.
Describing himself as an "abolitionist," Rajeev Dhawan, a Supreme Court lawyer, said that this was a gruesome killing which did fall in the category of the rarest of the rare but the degree of conspiracy has to be examined strictly.
The divide that has emerged after the judgement was delivered is reflected in the stand taken by Rajendra Sachar of the People's Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) who said that while they have a definite opinion on the imposition of the death penalty as part of a principalon civil liberties, "as long as the law allows for the imposition then the judge can certainly impose it."
Sachar however added that as per law since "all the accused are equally guilty in the conspiracy then the death penalty can be imposed on all the accused. And in such a case there is no logic in not giving death penalty."
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
