He has been on the death row for about 25 years, after being arrested for murder and sent to Pune’s Yerawada jail. During all those years behind bars, this primary school dropout taught himself Marathi and English, and obtained an MA in Sociology. But for the Supreme Court, what really mattered when setting Niranaram Chaudhary free on Monday was a date from the admissions register of a school in Rajasthan’s Bikaner.The register, from Rajkiya Adarsh Uch Madhyamik Vidyalaya in Jalabsar, showed that Chaudhary had dropped out of Class 3 on May 15, 1989.And so, the apex court ruled that he was a juvenile while being sentenced to death in 1998 with two others for the murder of five members of a family, including a pregnant woman and two children, in a “rarest of the rare” case.On Monday, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Justice K M Joseph, directed that Chaudhary “be set free forthwith from the correctional home in which he remains imprisoned, as he has suffered imprisonment for more than 28 years” after his arrest in 1994.Chaudhary’s death sentence had earlier been confirmed by the Bombay High Court and twice by the Supreme Court in 2000. However, abandoned by his family at the time of conviction, Chaudhary’s name and age were incorrectly recorded by the Pune court that awarded him the death penalty. In 2018, with the intervention of Project 39A, a criminal reforms advocacy group based in National Law University, Delhi, Chaudhary moved the Supreme Court again.He also argued that his actual name was Niranaram, which was wrongly recorded by the court as “Narayan”.In January 2019, the Supreme Court had referred the case to the Principal District and Sessions Judge in Pune to decide on Chaudhary’s status as a juvenile at the time of conviction. The inquiry led to the school admissions register in Jalabsar.“Apart from the documents of the school, there is a family card, to which we have referred to earlier. The date of issue of Family Card is 1989 and, in this card, issued by the State Government, Nirana’s age is shown to be 12 years,” the Supreme Court said in its final verdict.“Going by that certificate, his age at the time of commission of offence was 12 years and 6 months. Thus, he was a child/ juvenile on the date of commission of offence for which he has been convicted, in terms of the provisions of the 2015 Act. This shall be deemed to be the true age of Niranaram, who was tried and convicted as Narayan,” the Supreme Court said.Anup Surendranath, director of Project 39A, told The Indian Express that Chaudhary is currently in a jail in Nagpur. “Once the Pune Sessions Court orders his release, the Nagpur prison will set him free,” he said.
Even though the constitutional validity of the death penalty has been upheld by the Supreme Court, there have been persistent constitutional concerns with various aspects of the administration of the death penalty. Recent proceedings in the Supreme Court have, after nearly four decades, put the spotlight on the mode of execution in death penalty cases. It is inevitable that the Supreme Court will move towards the realisation that the concerns with the mode of execution to kill prisoners on death row raise insurmountable constitutional concerns.Death row prisoners in India are executed by hanging and the constitutional validity of hanging was last considered and upheld by the Supreme Court nearly four decades ago in September 1983 (Deena v. Union of India). The Law Commission of India in October 2003 (187th Report) recognised the constitutional impermissibility of death by hanging and recommended that India consider using lethal injections instead. However, the two decades since the 187th LCI Report have seen a series of botched up executions in the US involving lethal injections.Earlier this week, the Supreme Court was called upon to reconsider its September 1983 decision on whether India could continue using hanging for executions. While the petitioner’s claim was that we must move to lethal injection as a humane method of execution, the proceedings raise some fundamental constitutional questions for the administration of the death penalty. The most immediate question is whether there exists any mode of execution that can meet constitutional requirements. It obviously cannot be the position that merely because the death penalty is currently permissible it is then open to the state to use any method of execution. Any mode of execution that the state adopts must be capable of meeting constitutional requirements and that is a burden for the state to discharge.There is now a strong body of evidence establishing that death by hanging is a cruel and barbaric form of execution that violates human dignity. Contrary to the belief of “instantaneous death” by dislocating the cervical vertebrae, documentation of hangings in the US and the UK expose the cruel “lingering” between life and death as they undergo immense suffering due to asphyxiation before dying. Research is replete with instances of snapped ropes, necks that slipped out of nooses, partial or total decapitations, and slow death due to strangulation (instead of having the neck broken). The immediate and the painless nature of death attributed to hanging is an exception rather than the rule. Various courts including the Privy Council, Supreme Court of Uganda and the High Court of Tanzania have relied on the suffering caused by hangings to reject it as a humane method of execution.Like the Law Commission in October 2003, the petitioners in last week’s proceedings seem to be keen to replace death by hanging with lethal injections. However, there is now incontrovertible evidence from the US that executions using lethal injections come with a real and substantial risk of being botched and leading to immense suffering. In fact, a study published by the British Journal of American Legal Studies (2012) that examined 9,000 executions in the US between 1900 to 2010 found that executions using the lethal injection had a higher rate of being botched than any other method. In addition, the Death Penalty Information Center, a non-profit in the US, catalogues 59 different instances of botched executions including 47 by lethal injection. While the US continues to use lethal injection as a mode of execution, the procedure has not been scientifically or medically studied on human beings. Most states rely on a three-drug combination of sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride. While sodium thiopental puts the prisoner to sleep, pancuronium bromide renders the prisoner paralytic and unable to show any pain before potassium chloride causes cardiac arrest. Any suffering that the prisoner goes through as a result of the induced cardiac arrest is masked by the effect of pancuronium bromide.The petitioners in the current instance seem to have approached the court with the intention of wanting to reduce the pain of death row prisoners during executions. However, as Austin Sarat’s thought provoking work on the history of executions in the US has shown us, the conversation about “reducing pain” during executions is really about those viewing executions wanting to see less pain. Historically, societies using the death penalty have moved towards either carrying out executions in private away from the public gaze (like India does in its prisons with very few people witnessing the execution) or towards sanitising executions to make them look clean and without suffering (like the lethal injection executions in the US). However, neither of these options are really concerned with reducing pain for the prisoner and neither can they really achieve that reduction of pain. Society, as a consumer and supporter of the death penalty, does not want to see the immense suffering that is inflicted in killing the death row prisoner. As Sarat powerfully argues, it is almost like society wants to convince itself that it is killing the death row prisoner in a “civilised” way in contrast to the “savage” crime of the prisoner itself. It is now evident that all methods of execution that retentionist countries use inflict tremendous suffering on the death row prisoner.The search for the “least painful method” is ultimately an endeavour in how much cruelty we are willing to tolerate. It is about our collective willingness to inflict cruelty on an individual while wanting to appear otherwise. Instead, it would be better for us to acknowledge that issues surrounding the methods of execution present yet another constitutional crisis point in the administration of the death penalty. Just like the arbitrariness in death penalty sentencing, the discriminatory and disparate impact of the death penalty on marginalised groups, the brutal realities of life on death row, and the mental health consequences of being on death row, the constitutional infirmities with the method of execution is yet another reason to revisit the very administration of the death penalty in India. Over the four decades since the constitutional validity of the death penalty was upheld, it is striking that significant constitutional concerns have emerged over every aspect of its administration without exception.The author is Professor of Law and executive director, Project 39A at National Law University, Delhi. Research support by Namrata Sinha and Lakshmi Menon
Nerves frayed, fingers sweated, the spectators twitched in their seats, the support staff wore anxious faces, but in the middle of all the tension and suspense, Nat Sciver-Brunt remained calm and ensured that the first name inscribed on the WPL trophy would be of Mumbai Indians. She fittingly wrapped up the game with a scooped-over, her most audacious stroke of the night. She could indulge a bit in the end, because such indulgences were rare in her unbeaten 60 off 55 balls, a knock straight from the MS Dhoni finishing school. For much of the knock, hers was an invisible presence. Someone who was fresh from a 38-ball 72 in the eliminator, her big-hitting prowess well-established, she was splendidly restrained, feeding off singles of nudges and deflections for most of her knock. At the start, she shackled herself, gathering just seven runs from 17 balls. But you know how Dhoni does it; he makes it look like a struggle, even a lost cause, but then he is diligently gnawing away at the target, pushing the opponent to the back-foot inch by inch, before raining the knockout punches. When Sciver-Brunt blazed down the surface to check-drive Radha Yadav over extra-cover in the eighth over, it seemed like she was about to unshackle. She was not, as she continued to grit and graft. The early passages of her 71-run partnership with Harmanpreet played out in a similar tempo. Both were content in strolling along at five runs an over, in pursuit of 131, a target not too steep, but not a stroll either. Towards the end of the partnership, Kaur accelerated, picking timely boundaries, ensuring that the required run-rate seldom soared over 10 runs. Sciver-Brunt too chimed in with an occasional four—there was gorgeous steer off Shikha Pandey. 𝐇𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐜! @mipaltan captain @ImHarmanpreet with the prestigious #TATAWPL Trophy 👏👏#DCvMI | #Final pic.twitter.com/JhnGLS5wku— Women's Premier League (WPL) (@wplt20) March 26, 2023Together, they whittled down the target to a manageable 37 off 24 ball. Just as they seemed to nail the game, just as anxiety replaced smiles and the fingers began to sweat less, Pandey ran Kaur out with a flat and fast throw towards Alice Capsey, who disarrayed the stumps with hands as fast as lightning. Nat-Sciver chose the moment to counterpunch — part of a finisher’s genius is knowing when to attack and when not to, and she chose the ripest moment of the game. Capsey’s off-breaks oozed negligible threat, and collected a pair of boundaries, the first a brutal sweep and the second a polished reverse-sweep. All these runs turned out to be valuable as Pandey returned to bowl a splendid 18th over, which cost just five runs. .@natsciver scored a match-winning 60* when it mattered the most and bagged the Player of the Match award @mipaltan register a 7-wicket victory to become the inaugural champions of #TATAWPL Scorecard ▶️ https://t.co/N0U4wKUU0z#DCvMI | #Final pic.twitter.com/un9coN3lkj— Women's Premier League (WPL) (@wplt20) March 26, 2023You could empathise with Pandey. She was the reason Delhi reached as far as 131 after stumbling to 79/9. She and Radha Yadav then cracked 52 runs off 24 balls, before she masterminded the run out of Kaur and delivered four thrifty overs, costing just 23 runs. But it was to be the night of the nerveless, ice-veined, Sciver-Brunt. With Mumbai needing 22 off 12 balls, she fetched Jess Jonassen’s ball from outside the off-stump through backward square leg to suss the pressure. Her partner Amelie Kerr then snuffed Delhi’s last lingering hopes with fours off the fourth and fifth balls. In the next over, Sciver-Brunt applied the flourish, not perhaps as triumphantly as the Dhoni’s World Cup sealing six at Wankhede, but a stroke that would be remembered forever by the ecstatic supporters of Mumbai Indians. The defeated Delhi had just their self-defeating methods to blame. 𝙏𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙞𝙣𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜!😉Celebrations all around in @mipaltan's camp! #TATAWPL | #DCvMI | #Final pic.twitter.com/NkAazojfbQ— Women's Premier League (WPL) (@wplt20) March 26, 2023Rewatching the highlight reel would be embarrassing, for such was their shoddiness, their misjudgement of the nature of the wickets, the indiscretion of their shot selection and the nervousness that seized them at the faintest sniff of an implosion. Mumbai’s bowlers were intelligent and persistent, but they would readily admit that most wickets were gifted to them. The ever-giggling, crew-cut Isabelle Wong could barely believe her fortune when she pouched all her three wickets, the first three of Delhi’s scalps, with benign full tosses. Her start was hideous, with Shafali Varma creaming her for a six and four, but the hat-trick hero of the eliminator struck with her third ball, when Verma mis-sliced a dipping full-toss, fractionally below waist-high, to point. It was not an aberration, and the gifts kept on winking at Wong. Two balls later, Alice Capsey spooned another full-toss to cover, where Amanjot Kaur lunged forward to swoop the ball that was dying fast on her. But Delhi’s two most experienced batters, Meg Lanning and Jemimah Rodrigues, weathered the storm with a counterpunching stand of 23 runs in 15 balls. Jemimah seemed in regal touch, caressing a pair of all-hands cover-drives.WHAT. A. WIN 🥳🥳Absolute scenes in Mumbai!#TATAWPL | #DCvMI | #Final pic.twitter.com/IQPngHg7z7— Women's Premier League (WPL) (@wplt20) March 26, 2023But just then another Wong-full toss struck. Jemimah sweet-spotted a low, slow full-toss but straight to the point fielder. She stood crestfallen, as did her dazed teammates. With a 38-run Lanning and Marizanne Kapp rebuilt and seemed to take them through the road of redemption. But Kapp’s exit brought a heap of wickets, and Delhi imploded farcically. From 73 for three, they teetered to 79 for 9 in a bizarre spell of horrendous stroke-making. Though Pandey and Yadav brought them back into the game, Mumbai were not to blink, not least when Sciver-Brunt, moulded in the MS Dhoni finishing school, was around. And how she wrapped up the game.
Nerves frayed, fingers sweated, the spectators twitched in their seats, the support staff wore anxious faces, but in the middle of all the tension and suspense, Nat Sciver-Brunt remained calm and ensured that the first name inscribed on the WPL trophy would be of Mumbai Indians. She fittingly wrapped up the game with a scooped-over, her most audacious stroke of the night. She could indulge a bit in the end, because such indulgences were rare in her unbeaten 60 off 55 balls, a knock straight from the MS Dhoni finishing school. For much of the knock, hers was an invisible presence. Someone who was fresh from a 38-ball 72 in the eliminator, her big-hitting prowess well-established, she was splendidly restrained, feeding off singles of nudges and deflections for most of her knock. At the start, she shackled herself, gathering just seven runs from 17 balls. But you know how Dhoni does it; he makes it look like a struggle, even a lost cause, but then he is diligently gnawing away at the target, pushing the opponent to the back-foot inch by inch, before raining the knockout punches. When Sciver-Brunt blazed down the surface to check-drive Radha Yadav over extra-cover in the eighth over, it seemed like she was about to unshackle. She was not, as she continued to grit and graft. The early passages of her 71-run partnership with Harmanpreet played out in a similar tempo. Both were content in strolling along at five runs an over, in pursuit of 131, a target not too steep, but not a stroll either. Towards the end of the partnership, Kaur accelerated, picking timely boundaries, ensuring that the required run-rate seldom soared over 10 runs. Sciver-Brunt too chimed in with an occasional four—there was gorgeous steer off Shikha Pandey. 𝐇𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐜! @mipaltan captain @ImHarmanpreet with the prestigious #TATAWPL Trophy 👏👏#DCvMI | #Final pic.twitter.com/JhnGLS5wku— Women's Premier League (WPL) (@wplt20) March 26, 2023Together, they whittled down the target to a manageable 37 off 24 ball. Just as they seemed to nail the game, just as anxiety replaced smiles and the fingers began to sweat less, Pandey ran Kaur out with a flat and fast throw towards Alice Capsey, who disarrayed the stumps with hands as fast as lightning. Nat-Sciver chose the moment to counterpunch — part of a finisher’s genius is knowing when to attack and when not to, and she chose the ripest moment of the game. Capsey’s off-breaks oozed negligible threat, and collected a pair of boundaries, the first a brutal sweep and the second a polished reverse-sweep. All these runs turned out to be valuable as Pandey returned to bowl a splendid 18th over, which cost just five runs. .@natsciver scored a match-winning 60* when it mattered the most and bagged the Player of the Match award @mipaltan register a 7-wicket victory to become the inaugural champions of #TATAWPL Scorecard ▶️ https://t.co/N0U4wKUU0z#DCvMI | #Final pic.twitter.com/un9coN3lkj— Women's Premier League (WPL) (@wplt20) March 26, 2023You could empathise with Pandey. She was the reason Delhi reached as far as 131 after stumbling to 79/9. She and Radha Yadav then cracked 52 runs off 24 balls, before she masterminded the run out of Kaur and delivered four thrifty overs, costing just 23 runs. But it was to be the night of the nerveless, ice-veined, Sciver-Brunt. With Mumbai needing 22 off 12 balls, she fetched Jess Jonassen’s ball from outside the off-stump through backward square leg to suss the pressure. Her partner Amelie Kerr then snuffed Delhi’s last lingering hopes with fours off the fourth and fifth balls. In the next over, Sciver-Brunt applied the flourish, not perhaps as triumphantly as the Dhoni’s World Cup sealing six at Wankhede, but a stroke that would be remembered forever by the ecstatic supporters of Mumbai Indians. The defeated Delhi had just their self-defeating methods to blame. 𝙏𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙞𝙣𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜!😉Celebrations all around in @mipaltan's camp! #TATAWPL | #DCvMI | #Final pic.twitter.com/NkAazojfbQ— Women's Premier League (WPL) (@wplt20) March 26, 2023Rewatching the highlight reel would be embarrassing, for such was their shoddiness, their misjudgement of the nature of the wickets, the indiscretion of their shot selection and the nervousness that seized them at the faintest sniff of an implosion. Mumbai’s bowlers were intelligent and persistent, but they would readily admit that most wickets were gifted to them. The ever-giggling, crew-cut Isabelle Wong could barely believe her fortune when she pouched all her three wickets, the first three of Delhi’s scalps, with benign full tosses. Her start was hideous, with Shafali Varma creaming her for a six and four, but the hat-trick hero of the eliminator struck with her third ball, when Verma mis-sliced a dipping full-toss, fractionally below waist-high, to point. It was not an aberration, and the gifts kept on winking at Wong. Two balls later, Alice Capsey spooned another full-toss to cover, where Amanjot Kaur lunged forward to swoop the ball that was dying fast on her. But Delhi’s two most experienced batters, Meg Lanning and Jemimah Rodrigues, weathered the storm with a counterpunching stand of 23 runs in 15 balls. Jemimah seemed in regal touch, caressing a pair of all-hands cover-drives.WHAT. A. WIN 🥳🥳Absolute scenes in Mumbai!#TATAWPL | #DCvMI | #Final pic.twitter.com/IQPngHg7z7— Women's Premier League (WPL) (@wplt20) March 26, 2023But just then another Wong-full toss struck. Jemimah sweet-spotted a low, slow full-toss but straight to the point fielder. She stood crestfallen, as did her dazed teammates. With a 38-run Lanning and Marizanne Kapp rebuilt and seemed to take them through the road of redemption. But Kapp’s exit brought a heap of wickets, and Delhi imploded farcically. From 73 for three, they teetered to 79 for 9 in a bizarre spell of horrendous stroke-making. Though Pandey and Yadav brought them back into the game, Mumbai were not to blink, not least when Sciver-Brunt, moulded in the MS Dhoni finishing school, was around. And how she wrapped up the game.
