New Delhi: Like many countries in the world will India abolish the death penalty? Law Minister Veerappa Moily on Wednesday said that the death penalty should go.
He suggested that reform is better than something as terminal as hanging. The timing of the Law Minister's remarks is significant - at this moment President Pratibha Patil is apparently taking a fresh look at the 26 cases for hanging.
The confession of Amir Ajmal Kasab, the lone terrorist caught after 26/11, has thrown open the debate on the death penalty.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan says Kasab should be hanged for his crime but in New Delhi there seems to be a rethink on the death penalty.
NDTV has learnt that the President is contemplating a complete relook at the 26 death row cases after growing pressure from civil rights activists and the Amnesty International to abolish the death penalty.
A demand that even the law minister seems to support.
"There is a national debate going on mercy petitions whether death penalty should be imposed. After all, the punishments under the jurisprudence should be reformative process and not a terminal process," said Veerappa Moily, Union Law Minister.
Even the home ministry has called for a detailed roadmap to tackle mercy petitions pending since 1997.
But any attempt to commute the death sentence to life imprisonment can be a political hot potato.
Opposition parties have been accusing the government of dragging its feet over Afzal Guru's execution for political reasons.
"We will see the fine print but we want the government to act fast on the terrorist cases," said Ravi Shankar Prasad, leader, BJP.
Commuting the death sentence is not going to be an easy political decision for any President and with the government planning to separate terrorist cases from criminal cases a roadmap may be set for the early disposal of the mercy petitions of 50 condemned prisoner.