Faculty Seminar | An Unclear Empiricism: A Review of the Death Penalty India Report
Wednesday, December 4, 2019
The Paper on the Death Penalty India Report was presented by Mr. Kunal Ambasta, Assistant Professor, NLSIU.
Abstract: The Report opens up many ways and means by which India may engage in a meaningful conversation about the death penalty, and determine legislative policy on the subject.
Empirical studies on death row populations, often exploring effects of socio-economic or racial marginalization, are not uncommon across several
legal systems that used to, or continue to retain the death penalty on their statute books.’ Studies indicating over-representation of certain communities in prisons in India have also appeared with more or less regularity over the years, mostly depending on the data released periodically by the National Crime Records Bureau, through its annual “Prison Statistics India” report. A comprehensive survey of the men and women on death row in India, however, had not been carried out till the publication of the Death Penalty India Report by NLU Delhi in 2016. This, being the first of its kind study carried out in the Indian context is a welcome development in the country’s legal scholarship.