School of Law, Governance and Citizenship Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University of Delhi.
Invites you to a talk on Sexual Violence and Death Penalty
by Anup Surendranath (National Law University Delhi)
About the talk:
Akshay Kumar Singh, Mukesh, Pawan Kumar and Vinay Sharma - convicted of gang rape and murder of a 23 year old Jyoti Singh in the incident on December 16, 2012 in New Delhi are scheduled to be executed on February 1, 2020. The nationwide outrage and calls for hanging requires us to seriously consider our approach to sexual violence and punishment. While transgressions must not go unchecked and the perpetrators must be punished, can the demand for justice be equated with the demand for the imposition of the death penalty? The problem within the criminal justice system needs to be fixed at the investigation stage, the stages of reporting, investigation and forensic examination as well as in relation to the victim support mechanisms which at present are unavailable. This discussion will examine the empirical realities of the criminal justice system in India and critically evaluate the effectiveness of death penalty as a solution to address sexual violence against women.
About the speaker:
Anup Surendranath is the Executive Director, Project 39A National Law University Delhi. He was the Director of the Death Penalty Research Project (DPRP) at the National Law University, Delhi between June 2013 and May 2016. In a first of its kind in India, the DPRP resulting in the Death Penalty India Report (May 2016) interviewed all of India’s death row prisoners and their families towards developing a socio-economic profile and mapping their interaction with the criminal justice system. Dr. Surendranath was the Director of the Centre on the Death Penalty at NLU Delhi between August 2014 and May 2018 and oversaw its transition to Project 39A to broaden engagement on criminal justice in India. He has been consulted by the Law Commission of India and the UNOHCHR Geneva on the death penalty and has spoken extensively at domestic and international forums. In January 2018, Dr. Surendranath was appointed as a member of the Advisory Council at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, University of Oxford.