<\/p>\n
News:<\/span><\/b> Recently, the Supreme Court of India has initiated <\/span>a\u202f<\/span><\/b>suo motu<\/span><\/i><\/b>\u202fwrit petition <\/span><\/b>(criminal) to frame guidelines on the<\/span> mitigation analysis<\/span><\/b> in the cases pertaining to <\/span>death penalty sentencing<\/span><\/b> or<\/span> capital punishment<\/span><\/b>.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n If a sessions court (sentencing court) award a capital punishment, then it is to be confirmed by the<\/span> jurisdictional High Court<\/span><\/b> (confirming court) under Chapter 28 of the <\/span>Code of Criminal Procedure<\/span><\/b>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In\u202f<\/span>Bachan Singh vs State of Punjab<\/span><\/i><\/b>\u202f(1980)<\/span><\/b>, the supreme court called for balancing the <\/span>mitigating<\/span><\/b> and <\/span>aggravating circumstances<\/span><\/b> against each other. The court laid down the principle that the <\/span>death penalty<\/span><\/b> ought not to be awarded unless the alternative of life imprisonment is \u201c<\/span>unquestionably foreclosed<\/span><\/b>\u201d. It should be awarded only in a <\/span>rarest of rare case<\/span><\/b>.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n However, in later judgment, the <\/span>Supreme Court<\/span><\/b> has begun to inquire into <\/span>sentencing methodology<\/span><\/b> with great interest.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In\u202f<\/span>Rajendra Pralhadrao Wasnik vs The State of Maharashtra<\/span><\/i><\/b>\u202f(2018),<\/span><\/b> the Court directed to analyse the conduct of the convict in jail, outside jail if on bail for some time, medical evidence about his mental make-up, contact with his family and so on\u201d. The court directed to furnish reports related to these aspects. These reports are very important for the <\/span>mitigation investigation.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In\u202f<\/span>Mofil Khan vs State of Jharkhand<\/span><\/i><\/b>\u202f(2021<\/span><\/b>), the court held that the \u201cthe State must prove that the reformation and rehabilitation of the accused is not possible\u201d and that \u201cthe Court will have to highlight <\/span>clear eviden<\/span><\/b>ce as to why the convict is not fit for any kind of <\/span>reformatory<\/span><\/b> and <\/span>rehabilitation scheme<\/span><\/b>.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In\u202f<\/span>Manoj & Ors vs State of Madhya Pradesh<\/span><\/i><\/b>\u202f(2022), <\/span><\/b>the Court issued directions that all \u201creport(s) of all the <\/span>probation officer(s)\u201d<\/span><\/b> relating to the accused and reports \u201cabout their conduct and nature of the work done by them\u201d while in prison should be placed before the court. In addition, a <\/span>trained psychiatrist<\/span><\/b> and a <\/span>local professor of psychology<\/span><\/b> should also conduct a <\/span>psychiatric<\/span><\/b> and <\/span>psychological evaluation<\/span><\/b> of the convict<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n What are the issues in award of the capital punishment?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n According to a report by the <\/span>National Law University Delhi\u2019s Project 39A<\/span><\/b> titled \u2018<\/span>Matters of Judgment\u2019<\/span><\/b> there is <\/span>no judicial uniformity<\/span><\/b> or <\/span>consistency<\/span><\/b> in awarding of the death sentence.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n According to the Project 39A report titled \u2018<\/span>Death Penalty Sentencing in Trial Courts\u2019<\/span><\/b>, the courts have been lax in assessing the <\/span>aspect of reformation<\/span><\/b> while undertaking the <\/span>sentencing exercise.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There is a <\/span>new wave of thinking<\/span><\/b> in the domain of capital punishment. It was timely and necessary that the Supreme Court come up with the guidelines on the matter of<\/span> mitigation analysis<\/span><\/b>.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The court should explain what constitutes the <\/span>mitigating circumstances<\/span><\/b>, the role of a <\/span>probation officer<\/span><\/b> in assisting the Court and the <\/span>potential value addition<\/span><\/b> of a <\/span>mitigation investigator<\/span><\/b> to the sentencing exercise.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For a complete <\/span>mitigation investigation<\/span><\/b>, in addition to legal professionals, there is a requirement of <\/span>professionals <\/span><\/b>trained in <\/span>psychology<\/span><\/b>, <\/span>sociology<\/span><\/b> and <\/span>criminology<\/span><\/b>.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The SC\u2019s guidelines related to the<\/span> mitigation investigation<\/span><\/b> will strengthen <\/span>the doctrine of the rarest of rare<\/span><\/b>. This will ensure that the <\/span>sentencing<\/span><\/b> and <\/span>confirming courts<\/span><\/b> exercise their <\/span>capital punishment sentencing power<\/span><\/b> with greater fairness.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Source<\/span><\/b>: The post is based on an article \u201c<\/span>A new track for capital punishment jurisprudence<\/span><\/b>\u201d published in the \u201cThe Hindu<\/strong>\u201d on 07<\/strong><\/span>th<\/strong> May 2022<\/strong>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" News: Recently, the Supreme Court of India has initiated a\u202fsuo motu\u202fwrit petition (criminal) to frame guidelines on the mitigation analysis in the cases pertaining to death penalty sentencing or capital punishment.\u00a0\u00a0 Procedure for capital punishment\u00a0 If a sessions court (sentencing court) award a capital punishment, then it is to be confirmed by the jurisdictional High… Continue reading A new track for capital punishment jurisprudence\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,10498],"class_list":["post-183254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1702666896},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183254\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Procedure for capital punishment\u00a0<\/strong><\/h5>\n
Evolution of the Jurisprudence related to death penalty in India\u00a0<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n
Way Forward<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n