New Delhi: At least 472 convicts were on death row as of 2021 while sentences of around 290 condemned prisoners were commuted to life imprisonment over the last five years, the government has told parliament.
Minister of State for h\Home Affairs Ajay Kumar Mishra on Wednesday cited data from the “Prison Statistics India” report and said the highest (67) prisoners were sentenced to death in 2021 in Uttar Pradesh followed by Bihar (46) and Maharashtra (44).
The death sentences of 46 prisoners were commuted to life imprisonment in Madhya Pradesh followed by 35 in Maharashtra and 32 in Uttar Pradesh, Mishra said while responding to Bharat Rashtra Samithi lawmaker Niranjan Reddy’s question.
Reddy sought details of convicts awaiting the death penalty and those suffering from mental illnesses.
According to the latest “Prison Statistics India” report, 9,180 inmates were reported to be suffering from mental illness, accounting for 1.7% of the total 554000 prisoners in jails as of 2021. It said out of 9,180 inmates suffering from mental illness, 41.3% (3,787) were convicts, 58.4% (5,365) were undertrials, and 0.3% (23) were detinues.
The Union government in 2018 told the Supreme Court that the death penalty is given to only those convicts who have acted with extreme brutality, and depravity or carried out premeditated or socially abhorrent acts. Four men convicted for the rape and murder of a woman on a bus in New Delhi in 2012 were hanged in March 2020.
The Supreme Court last month asked the Union government to initiate a discussion on the subject and collect information on the executions carried out in the last four decades. It said hanging by the neck to execute the death sentence can be declared unconstitutional if there is scientific material favouring a different method of execution as less painful and “more consistent with human dignity”.
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