Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

Death penalty

When Nehru favoured vesting of discretion, in deciding the mercy petitions, in the head of state in 1950, Rajaji wrote to some of his friends: "There are certain situations where the taking of life offers itself as a solution to people in distress and difficulty ... If the only sanction is a term of imprisonment, the urge to kill will have its own way ... To retain the death penalty in the statute book and to give large powers to the judges to give an alternative sentence even in cases of proved murder in cold blood seems to be the only proper thing to do ... We should not give murderers the monopoly of inflicting death sentences while disabling ourselves" (The Rajaji Story 1937-1972 by Rajmohan Gandhi).

K. Vedamurthy,
Chennai

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