MyVoice: Views of our readers 17th February 2020

Plug loopholes in criminal justice system

India is one of the countries which have retained the capital punishment. There are specified offences in the IPC and other laws which carry death sentence on conviction. Our judiciary awards death sentence in rarest of the rare cases. The Nirbhaya case is drawing the attention of the whole country. So far, two death warrants have been issued for the execution of the four convicts but the same could not be implemented.

The reasons why the convicts could not be hanged even after the Supreme Court rejected their appeal is due to the non-availability of remaining legal options by the convicts. The four convicts had not fully utilised the legal options at their disposal viz., Convict W did not file a revision petition in the Supreme Court , Convict X did not file a curative petition in the Supreme Court, Convict Y did not file a mercy petition and Convict Z raised the issue of his being a juvenile at the time of committing the crime.

The court was informed that one of the convicts was ill-treated in the jail etc. The rejection of the mercy petition by the President of India has also been challenged by the convicts on the grounds that all the relevant papers were not placed before the President of India. Our legal system gives a very long rope to the convicted persons post death sentence with no parallel in other countries.

Since the death sentence cannot be carried out until and unless all the convicts on death row exhaust all legal options at their disposal, there will be no hurry on the part of the condemned to exhaust/avail the remaining legal options.

Further, as per the prevailing law, all the four convicts have to be hanged together. What is needed is drastic changes in the current law/procedures pertaining to the post death sentence options available to the convicted, so that persons committing heinous crimes do not take advantage of the legal options and adopt delaying tactics and keep the courts engaged with one appeal or the other resulting in endless delay. All heinous crimes should be tried by fast track courts on day-to-day hearing.

Death sentence should be made mandatory by Parliament with necessary amendment, which implies that there is no scope for mercy petition. Appeal to the Supreme Court only when the High Court judgement is at variance with the session court.

There should be a bar on the convict to file revision petition as well as curative petition. The 14-day time given to the convict before execution be curtailed to five days only. Once the Supreme Court rejects the appeal by the convicts in death sentence, no court should entertain any appeal for any reason under any circumstance.

K Ahmed, Hyderabad

Let's keep our city clean

I request the govt of Telangana to ensure that we have good roads in the city and the roads are clean without garbage and debris to attract tourists and foreign investors and make our Hyderabad city a global city comparable with New York or Washington.

Some years ago, I went to the US and was spellbound by the neatness of the roads without potholes and garbage. They undertake repairs so neatly that we don't find any construction materials spilling over on the roads making us feel that life is worth-living.

The summer is coming and I request that all the roads in the city are repaired with quality and ensure that the people won't suffer any more due to bad roads and not curse oneself whenever they go out on the roads thus avoiding accidents and vexation to commute to their places.

Further, the GHMC may be advised to see that the sweeping of the roads is completed before 6 am as the schoolchildren suffer due to dust and dirt engulfing the areas due to sweeping.

Officials of the GHMC may be allotted areas so that they may make daily inspections to ensure that the areas are cleaned before the specified time and there is no laxity in any way to keep our city clean and pure.

Please adopt these suggestions and make our city worth living and let us show to the world that Indians are in no way lesser than people of other advanced countries.

A M Daniel, Hyderabad