Revisiting death penalty jurisprudence

Recently, a Bench of the Supreme Court of India, decided to critically examine the routine and abrupt way in which trial judges often impose the death penalty on convicts. 

What has caused the SC to examine practices in death penalty sentencing?

• The court is undertaking an exercise to reform the procedures by which information necessary in a death penalty case is brought before courts.
• In so doing, the Supreme Court is acknowledging concerns with the manner in which death penalty sentencing is being carried out.
• While the death penalty has been held to be constitutional, the manner in which it has been administered has triggered accusations of unfairness and arbitrariness.

How are judges supposed to choose between life and death sentences?

• In May 1980, when the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of the death penalty in Bachan Singh’s case, a framework was developed for future judges to follow when they had to choose between life imprisonment and the death penalty. 
• At the heart of that framework was the recognition that the legislature in the Criminal Procedure Code had made it clear that life imprisonment would be the default punishment and judges would need to give “special reasons” if they wanted to impose the death sentence.
• Through the 1980 framework, popularly but inaccurately known as the “rarest of rare” framework.
• The Supreme Court said that judges must consider both aggravating and mitigating factors concerning the crime and the accused when deciding if the death penalty is to be imposed.
• The judgment also made it clear that life imprisonment as a sentence would have to be “unquestionably foreclosed” before judges imposed the death sentence.
• There was an indicative list of factors that the judgment identified as being relevant, but it was clear that it was not meant to be an exhaustive list.