Bonavero Discussion Group: Death Penalty Jurisprudence and India's Quest for an Equitable Justice

Everyone is warmly invited to join us for the Bonavero Discussion Group on Tuesday 29th October at 12:30pm, where Dr Aditya Sondhi will deliver a talk on the death penalty jurisprudence in India. He will be joined by Professor Carolyn Hoyle as a discussant. A light lunch will be provided for in-person participants.

A singular reason for India having transformed to a near de facto abolitionist state in the matter of capital punishment, is judicial intervention. By laying down various facets of ‘mitigation’, the Supreme Court of India has commuted death sentences in several matters where the accused were found to satisfy these tests, based on their conduct, background, health and /or reformative prospects. Moreover, this has led to a course correction in the application of the ‘rarest of the rare’ principle while handing out capital punishment. Often, this test was applied differently basis the relative gravity of the offence, coupled with the presence (or absence) of aggravating and mitigating circumstances, leading to inconsistent outcomes. The jurisprudence over the past decade or so reflects an enhanced judicial sensitivity in the consideration of death penalty cases. Many a time, the court has had to reverse concurrent convictions and order acquittal of accused on death row, owing to insufficient evidence, inadequate investigation or the want of a fair trial.

Did these developments offer an opportunity to Indian Parliament to revisit the death penalty while undertaking large-scale criminal law reform in 2023? Or, at least, enable better codification of judicial principles of mitigation and fair hearing in dealing with such offences? Could Sentencing Councils have been introduced in the law? Drawing on his experience as a Senior Counsel who has appeared in death penalty cases before the Supreme Court of India, and with reference to comparative international models, the speaker will trace India’s experience with capital punishment and its efforts at achieving a more equitable justice that balances the rights of the victims, society and the accused alike.

Dr Aditya Sondhi went to the Bishop Cotton Boys’ School, Bengaluru and is a Senior Advocate practising before the Supreme Court of India. He has served as Additional Advocate General for the State of Karnataka from April 2016 to April 2018 and has been appointed Amicus Curiae in several matters of public importance. He has taught constitutional law and professional ethics at the National Law School of India University, from where he graduated in 1998. He has also taught a specially curated credit course on ‘Courts and National Security’ and has contributed to the Oxford Handbook on the Indian Constitution.

Dr Sondhi appears in matters of criminal and constitutional law, with a special interest in human rights advocacy. He has appeared pro bono in several death penalty cases before the Supreme Court of India including Munna Pandey v State of Bihar, which lays down cardinal principles of a fair trial. He was invited to appear before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs instituted in connection with the criminal law reforms in India in 2023.

Dr Sondhi has lectured widely in India, as also in the UK at LSE, SOAS and Bristol University. He holds a PhD from Mysore University and has published three books of non-fiction with Penguin (India), including his most recent ‘Poles Apart’, which examines the relationship between military and democracy in India and Pakistan. He has written two plays around Partition and migration, and runs a podcast called ‘The Podcaste: Conversations Around Caste’.

Chair:

Kate O'Regan is a Fellow of Mansfield College, Oxford, Professor of  Human Rights Law in the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, and the the inaugural Director of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights

Discussant:

Carolyn Hoyle is Professor of Criminology at the Centre for Criminology, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, and Senior Research Fellow of Green Templeton College.