Life imprisonment can be defined as a legal sanction which is sanctioned by States around the world to punish wrongdoers with lifelong imprisonment. Over the past one decade there has been a substantial change within the penal policy because of which the world has moved towards the prohibition of capital punishment Thus, resulting in an increase in life imprisonment as an alternative as well as substitute to death penalty.

As per the recent report of United Nations based on the goal 16 for sustainable development goals, life imprisonment is world's most used forms of punishment mainly because, most of the times courts around the world believe in passing life sentence more than capital punishment as it is revocable in nature. Furthermore, it has been recorded in the year 2014 that more than 5 lakh people are serving life sentence around the world and in comparison to the statistics recorded in the year 2000, which was as low as 2 lakh 60 thousand, the report has shown that there has been an increase of almost 85% in the number of people serving life sentence for the last 14 years.

Life Imprisonment an Alternative for Capital Punishment?
Capital punishment or death penalty can be defined as a punishment which is passed against a criminal, who has committed a heinous crime. Under capital punishment, the life of such a criminal is put to an end by hanging him or following such similar methods. While some countries grant capital punishment for committing those crimes which are considered barbaric, there are others too along with the United Nations who believe that capital punishment is the gross violation of human rights of an individual and does not serve the purpose of reformation.

Therefore, various states presently grant life imprisonment to even those criminals who have committed serious crimes, and the very reason for doing so is to protect the right to life of the accused ,because even he is considered to be the subject of the human right law of that particular state. Not only this, but the United Nations along with various other welfare organizations , do not support capital punishment because it does not serve the purpose of punishing the criminal and rather provides him within an easy escape from all of his wrong doings through the simple as well as easy punishment of death.

Furthermore, various legal researchers have also stated that life imprisonment without parole or without remission is considered to be an equivalent punishment to capital punishment, which allows the state to punish the wrongdoer, without taking away the life of such criminal, who has committed a barbaric crime.

The retentionists of capital punishment often assert that death penalty would incapacitate the offender taking to crime however this assumption is illusionary and based on sheer probability.
The survey that was undertaken post the Furman v Georgia judgement unveiled the fact that 98.7% of the 558 prisoners who were spared execution did not take to crime in future.

This rules out the presence of any cogent evidence of incapacitation upon infliction of capital punishment.
It is also asserted that there is no statistical proof to support the deterrent effect of death penalty (Gregg v Georgia) A person is never a born criminal, it is the circumstances that unfold in the society that shape his psychology.

The report of Amnesty International and PUCL in 2008 revealed that death penalty in india is awarded in a non uniform and inconsistent manner.

The case of Ankush Maruti Shinde v State of Maharashtra ( 2019) is a glaring example of the same.The Supreme Court acquitted six accused who had been sentenced to death by the trial court after they had already spent 16 years in jail. The court also ordered re investigation in a crime that was committed in June 2003.

One of the accused in the case was a juvenile who had been kept under solitary confinement and others were aged between 25-30 years who lost a considerable portion of their lives. The irrevocable nature of death penalty makes it a punishment which our criminal justice system does not support.

The Death Penalty India report published by National Law University Delhi revealed that about 15 convicts who had been sentenced to death and were awaiting execution claimed to be juveniles at the time the crime was committed.

No such claims were found to have been considered in their trials.

In some cases it was reported that the sentence was announced the same day of conviction. It is imperative as per section 248(2)CrPC that trial courts hold a sentence hearing before inflicting the sentence. Moreover section 354(3) CrPC states that when conviction is for an offence punishable with death or imprisonment of life or imprisonment for a term, it is essential to state the reasons for the same and in case of capital punishment, it is necessary to mention the special reasons. Hence, if sentence hearing is not conducted as a mandatory step by the trials courts, it can lead to inconsistency in awarding punishment.

The instances of broken legal aid, custodial violence and lack of representation manifest the drawbacks in the criminal justice system.

The plea taken by India in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case at the ICJ was lack of consular access provided by Pakistan in violation of article 36 of the Vienna convention and ironically, in various cases in India, the accused does not have access to the same.( Death penalty India Report)

As per the Steiker's report published in the USA, the cost of execution is estimated to be $1.8-3million and that of life imprisonment without remission is $1.13 million.

Amidst this, it is essential to balance victim rights and the rights of the accused. India can therefore consider Life imprisonment without remission, as evolved in the case of Shraddananda and Sriharan, as a substitute to death penalty.

Views are personal only
The authors can be contacted at akshitdua93@gmail.com and harshitagulati44@gmail.com

Written By:

1. Akshit Dua (Advocate Delhi High Court) and
2. Harshita Gulati (LLB, FinalYear, Campus Law Centre, Delhi University).