Penal Populism and the Death Penalty in India: Politics, Punishment, and Marginalisation

Sanjay Vashishtha, Executive Director of Project 39A at National Law University Delhi, will speak on penal populism and its relationship to the death penalty. His presentation will explore how public opinion, political incentives, and institutional dynamics influence the retention and application of capital punishment across different jurisdictions. Dr Emma Obadia-Humphris and Professor Anneke Petzsche will serve as discussants.

Drawing on debates in criminal law, criminology, and theories of punishment, the discussion will examine questions of democratic legitimacy, state power, and the place of retributive justice in contemporary criminal justice systems. Particular attention will be paid to the disproportionate impact of the death penalty on economically and socially marginalised communities, as well as the ways in which penal policy can be shaped by populist pressures. 

Sanjay Vashishtha

Sanjay Vashishtha

Sanjay Vashishtha is a practicing advocate and the Executive Director of Project 39A, National Law University, Delhi. He represents and continues to represent the Election Commission of India as its Standing Counsel, National Law University Delhi as its Standing Counsel, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi as Standing Counsel, Delhi Police as Consultant Legal, Rajiv Gandhi National Law University, Patiala as Consultant and Counsel, and the Delhi Development Authority, among others. He also serves as Special Counsel to the Government of NCT of Delhi and as a Board Member of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University. He practices on both the original and appellate sides before the Courts of Higher Judicature, NCLT, NCLAT, and the Supreme Court of India, and is defence counsel in several high-profile and sensitive criminal matters.

He has served as a consultant to the Penal Law Reform Committee constituted by the Ministry of Home Affairs and as an expert member of a Government of India committee on the Right to Repair. He has been invited by the National Investigation Agency to train its officers, has spoken at the Parliament of India on several occasions, and has addressed participants from more than eighty countries. Sanjay Vashishtha holds degrees from McGill University and the University of Oxford, and he has published extensively in national and international journals on criminology related topics.

Dr. Emma Obadia-Humphris

Emma Obadia-Humphris is a senior researcher at the Society Library, where her work focuses on building tools to enhance public reasoning and incorporate a plurality of epistemologies into civic deliberation. Her research sits at the intersection of epistemologies, AI, and civic technologies, with a particular interest in how knowledge is constructed, legitimized, and contested in institutional contexts. Her current work is rooted in a PhD in performance studies and education at Stanford, where she wrote about cultural performances in US-based police academies, exploring how tacit knowledge, such as listening skills, is transmitted and institutionalized. This early research shaped a broader inquiry into the epistemological foundations of legal, civic and educational institutions: who gets to know, how they know it, and whose knowledge counts in high-stakes public deliberations. In addition to her doctorate at Stanford University, she holds an degrees in criminology, philosophy, and political science from the University of Oxford, Sciences Po Paris, and Sorbonne Paris IV.

Professor Anneke Petzsche

Professor Anneke Petzsche is a professor of criminal law, criminal procedure law, international criminal law and economic and environmental criminal law at the University of Bremen. She specialises in criminal law and procedure, European criminal law, and contemporary legal history. Her current research focuses on the political abuse of criminal proceedings, a topic for which she received a grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG) as Principal Investigator. She completed her doctorate summa cum laude at Humboldt University, Berlin, and holds a Master Degree from the University of Oxford, graduating with distinction. In 2018, she was accredited as a legal expert at the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), and in 2024 she served as an expert for the Legal Affairs Committee of the German Parliament.

Caitlyn McGeer