One of the more difficult tasks for me as president was to decide on the issue of confirming capital punishment awarded by the courts after exhausting all processes of appeals. As a substantial number of cases have been pending in Rashtrapati Bhavan for many years, it is one inherited task that no president would feel happy about. I thought I should get all these cases examined from a normal citizen’s point of view in terms of the crime, intensity of the crime and the social and financial status of the individuals who were convicted and awarded capital punishment. This study revealed to my surprise that almost all the cases which were pending had a social and economic bias. This gave me the impression that we were punishing the person who was least involved in the enmity and who did not have a direct motive for committing the crime. Of course there was one case where I found that a lift operator had in fact committed the crime of raping and killing a girl without doubt. In that case I affirmed the sentence.

In my view while courts are hearing the capital punishment cases they should alert the law-enforcing authorities to intelligently find out the source of sustenance of the individual who is being punished and that of his family.

This kind of analysis may lead to the real person and the motive which has led to the crime. We are all the creations of God. I am not sure a human system or a human being is competent to take a way a life based on artificial and created evidence.