As the Kerala High Court sentences the killers of Marxist leader to 20 years of rigorous life imprisonment, it triggers adebate on what constitutes “rarest of the rare” killing and who qualifies for the death penalty
By Sanjay Raman Sinha
Revolutionary Marxist Party leader TP Chandrasekharan was brutally murdered on May 4, 2012, in Onchiyam, Kozhikode. A Division Bench of Justices AK Jayasankaran Nambiar and Kauser Edappagath of the Kerala High Court recently upheld the life imprisonment awarded to 10 of the 11 people convicted for the murder. The murder was chilling as the hoodlums had hacked Chandrasekharan’s body, which bore 51 wounds.
The Court held that it was not sufficient to impose a sentence of simple life imprisonment, given the barbaric nature of the crime. The Court also clarified that nine of these convicts will have to undergo at least 20 years of imprisonment before they can even apply for a remission of their sentence.
The case was at first heard at the Sessions Court of Kozhikode division in 2014. The Sessions Court had recognised the gravity of the crime and had said: “The murder in this case was cold-blooded, pre-planned and brutal. The motive of the crime was not any personal enmity. The manner in which the murder was committed reveals extreme depravity. The action of the accused was not only inhuman, but also ruthless and barbaric. It shocks not only the judicial conscience, but the collective conscience of the society.”
However, the Sessions Court stopped short of awarding death penalty to the convicts and gave them life sentences, instead. The lower court cited a series of judgments in which similar murder cases were heard and imprisonment was awarded instead of the death sentence. The Court based its verdict on the doctrine of the “rarest of the rare” as propounded in the historical Bachan Singh case.
In the case of Bachan Singh vs State of Punjab, the Supreme Court gave the “rarest of the rare” doctrine. The doctrine stated that the death punishment is an absolute, unique exception, and cannot be the rule. The crime done by the accused must be base and inhuman enough to justify the death penalty, and death penalty should not be given in every situation. The doctrine worked out a test to decide on awards of the death punishment to a criminal if found guilty for a particular crime. The conditions laid down by the Court were:
- The death penalty should be given in the gravest of crimes.
- In awarding death penalty not only the circumstances of the crime be considered, but also circumstances of the offender as well.
- Life imprisonment is the rule and death sentence the exception.
- A balance sheet of aggravating and mitigating circumstances be drawn up and mitigating factors have to be accorded full weightage before deciding punishment. The “rarest of rare” cases is when the convict is a menace and threat to society.
The Supreme Court had said that “A real and abiding concern for the dignity of human life postulates resistance to taking a life through law’s instrumentality. That is not to be done except in ‘rarest or the rare’ case where the alternative opinion is unquestionably foreclosed”.
After weighing all factors, the Sessions Court held that though the crime is important, the criminal is also important. Thus, it awarded life sentences to the convicts.
This verdict was challenged in the Kerala High Court wherein it enhanced sentences of six convicts. It held that the serious nature of the crime was not sufficient to impose a simple life imprisonment sentence and gave 20 years of imprisonment without remission.
Investigations had revealed that the local CPI(M) leaders had given a contract for Chandrasekharan’s murder to a seven-member killer gang. Kerala is no stranger to political violence and it has a bloody history to prove it. According to Wikipedia figures: “Between 2000 and 2017, Kerala reported at least 80 political murders. The state also reported the third highest number of murders committed due to political reasons in 2015, according to National Crime Records Bureau data of that year. In the last 17 years, 85 CPI(M) workers, 65 RSS or BJP workers, 11 workers of the Congress and Indian Union Muslim League each have been killed—mostly by their political rivals.”
Kerala is dominated by two cadre-based organisations—the CPI(M) and the RSS. There is a bloody history of conflicts between the two. Some Muslim outfits have also participated in the bloodshed.
The Kannur district of Kerala is infamous for political murders. Between 2000 and 2016 of the UDF rule, Kannur reported 69 political murders. The district has also accounted for around 30% of the political murders committed during the UDF regimes in this period. Both the CPI(M) and the RSS have suffered loss of workers’ life equally. In Kannur, clashes between the RSS and the CPI(M) have claimed over 300 lives since 1969. Kannur has been the cusp of the communist movement in the state with veteran leftists having their roots in the region.
The political killings in Kerala gains significance in light of the fact that the state operates on high development indices as compared to other states. Despite better literacy, inhuman killings is a social enigma which social scientists often ponder upon. Though there is a high level of political participation and activism, the presence of strong ideological differences and criminalization of politics are fuelling political killings.
What is worrisome is the communalization of political violence. Islamist organisations have their presence and counter the BJP-RSS combine. Their foot soldiers don’t hesitate to spill blood at the slightest provocation. The bloody blend of politics, caste, class and religion have made Kerala a deadly killing field where no cause is less worthy of murder and where no life is more worthy than the cause.
To broker peace in strife-torn state, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in 2016 had even initiated a mediation effort with spiritual guru Sri M and CPM-RSS leaders, but the violence has continued abated and God’s Own Country bleeds continuously from savage killings.