Dead Wrong: Why was DhananjoyChatterjee Hanged?is a report which questions the judicial decision to hang Dhananjoy Chatterjee on 14th August 2004 in Kolkata’s Alipore Correctional Home. Chatterjee, a security guard, was awarded death penalty for the rape and murder of an 18 year old girl, Hetal Parekh, in March 1990 in her apartment in Bhowanipore, Kolkata. On the basis of a detailed study of the three judgements (the lower court, the High Court and the Supreme Court) and other judicial pronouncements by the apex court, the report illustrates how the case against Dhananjoy was flawed and fallacious. Adding to the existing information on the case collated by ProbalChoudhuri and DebasishSengupta, the PUDR report counters the common arguments in favour of death penalty by showing how, in the Dhananjoy case, miscarriage of justice was effected through error and prejudice. 

Keywords: abolition, commutation, criminal justice system, Death Penalty, defence, delay, execution, forensic, hanged, judicial error, medical examination, mercy petition, murder, post mortem, rape, rarest of rare, retributive, Right to Life, solitary confinement, Supreme Court, Trial Court,West Bengal.