Although the Law Commission’s recommendation that consultation with the court (on the question of pardon) should be made mandatory to avoid any ‘appearance of arbitrary action’ and to remove suspicion that ‘political considerations’ were adopted; the Supreme Court filled in the lacuna by holding that where pardon is granted on extraneous and wholly irrelevant considerations it would be set aside. Such lapses must be seen as the failure of the people who are in the system and not the system itself.

Two instances from the freedom struggle reflect the need to adhere to the basic objectives of sentencing. General Dyer ordered the killing of thousands and without any compunction reported the same to his colleagues triumphantly. And, contrastingly, as events began to get ahead of themselves, Chandrasekhar Azad, confessed to Jawaharlal Nehru that ‘terrorism’ would not solve British India’s problem. Law is good, but justice is better.

The writer is a Delhi-based advocate