In addition to politicians and intelligentsia Varun Gandhi a BJP parliamentarian astounded by giving a statement that in India poor persons are victims of death sentence and gallows are not allowed to reach to trap the wealthy persons. Any how political aspirations laid them away from the realities.
A person who is finally awarded sentence of death goes to gallows irrespective of his social of financial status in society. It is wrong to say that only poor are hanged to death. Never, never and never; courts never consider about the status of a person while convict him. The law of penology is very clear and it lays down the mode of quantum of sentence to be awarded to a convicted person. It never considers about caste, creed and sex. When a person is to be sentenced broadly speaking a court considers about the nature of a case, and offence, under what circumstance the accused committed the offence, and the antecedents of the accused.
Beside special laws the Indian penal Code provides for death sentence. There are hardly 10-15 sections in which in addition to life imprisonment death sentence is also provided. Death sentence is given in rarest of the rarest case. There are checks and balances in awarding death sentence. Every case of death is not a case of murder. It may be a culpable homicide or culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
The question is why poor persons are sentenced to death? In reality generally wealthy persons do no commit such heinous crimes against persons or property which may lead to gallows. They are not criminals as such. They mostly commit economic offences, offences relating to lands scams, and other so many mafia activities in which politicians, bureaucrats and influential persons are involved through whom thy may earn unearned money, property and wealth. They create black money by evading taxes also. All such activities are not punishable with death sentences and therefore wealthy persons though sentenced to jail sentence are far away from gallows. Shashi Tarror said that the British rulers framed Penal Code in such manner so that poor persons may get death sentence. It is a novel statement by him with no base and with all absurdity, a ridiculous, not logical and sensible. Congress party who ruled nation for more than 60 years failed to amend the said law so that reach persons could be sentenced to death. It appears that the framers of the Indian Penal code had more better understanding and foresight (vision) in comparison to Indians framers of law.
Offences committed by such rich and wealthy persons are generally known as white collar offences and their aim is not to commit offences against state, persons and property (in general terms) as defined in Penal Law. Their aim is also not to commit crimes which a common man commits against another man. It is not their field. Their aim is to earn money and for that they commit financial irregularities cheating, fraud, conspiracy and like offences. Their aim is not to kidnap, abduct steal, murder, rape or theft etc. The offences which such white colored persons commit are such in which no death sentence is generally provided.
It is not that reach persons are not shown doors of jail. Even Subrata Roy of Sahara was in jail in default of payment of money contributed by his company from aspirants to have their houses. It would have been better if Shashi Tharoor, Varun Gandhi, Yechuri and like persons would have provided a list of the so called rich persons who committed offences punishable with death sentence and the circumstances in which death sentence ought to have been awarded but were not awarded such sentence by courts. Vague and base less statements show least regards for judiciary and are misdirected making confusion in the minds of general public. This is also a part of anarchy.
Thanks,
P.V.Namjoshi
Advocate
108, Dashahara Maidan
Ujjain, M.P. 456010
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A.P.Gupta Yes, it is true that the poor suffer from lack of justice . They can't afford it, they cannot access it despite the LSA act etc. 2To be poor is a sin . A small infringement of law may give rise to a JEAM VALJEAN