NEW DELHI: In a major boost to the campaign against death penalty , the Supreme Court refused to confirm the capital punishment for a man who burned his pregnant wife and son for dowry, saying extreme punishment militated against the reformative theory of jurisprudence Though the crime could qualify for the rarest-of-the rare criteria for awarding the death penalty, the court took a different view after considering the case. "Today, when capital punishment has become a distinctive feature of the death penalty apparatus in India, which somehow breaches the reformative theory of punishment under criminal law, we are not inclined to award the same in the peculiar facts and circumstances of the present case," said a bench of Justices Pinaki C Ghose and R F Nariman on Friday. "Therefore, confinement till natural life of the accused respondent shall fulfil the requisite criteria of punishment," the bench said, ordering Nisar Ramzan Sayyed to jail for the rest of his life for the murder of his wife and three-year-old son in 2010. The SC took note of the Law Commission 's recent report. Thus, it decided to award life sentence to the husband.

Source: Times of India April 08, 2017 19:47 UTC