A resolution was presented to the United Nations calling for a global moratorium on extreme punishments such as the death penalty. India voted against the proposal. Along with India, a total of 33 countries voted against it. This list includes most countries of the Middle East including China, America, Japan, Pakistan. 133 countries also voted in favor.
Last Friday, the third committee of the United Nations General Assembly accepted this proposal brought by Mexico. A total of 193 countries participated in the voting. Most countries are in favor of abolishing the death penalty there. 133 countries voted in favor of the resolution. 33 countries voted against. And 16 countries abstained from voting. The resolution submitted to the United Nations called on all states to grant another moratorium on the death penalty and to gradually move towards its abolition. In addition, concern has been expressed about the increase in the number of death sentences in the world in 2025.
India's representative said, 'The death penalty in India is imposed after a strict legal process, and only in the rarest of rare cases.'
After the voting incident, Bhavika Mangalanandan, First Secretary of India's Permanent Mission to the United Nations, said, “There is no international consensus against the death penalty. Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights allows the death penalty conditionally. She also said that in India, the death penalty is imposed after a strict legal process, and only in the rarest of rare cases. Any sovereign state has the right to determine its own laws and punishments.”
Although India supported the resolution on extrajudicial killings in the same session, it withdrew from its Article 6. India objects that the article equates the death penalty with torture. According to India, it is wrong to call the death penalty imposed by the court as a 'state murder'. However, this is not the first time India's stand against the death penalty in the United Nations. India had previously voted against the same proposal in 2016, 2018 and 2024.