REFLECTING A divergence in decision-making on demise penalty at completely different ranges within the judiciary, the Supreme Court docket — for the second consecutive yr — didn’t affirm a single demise sentence in 2024 whereas trial courts awarded 139 such verdicts, in line with a report by Undertaking 39A, a felony justice programme on the Nationwide Legislation College Delhi.
The SC heard six appeals in 2024 — it commuted 5 demise sentences to life imprisonment whereas one was acquitted. For second yr, no demise penalty passes SC take a look at whereas one was acquitted.
“In a continuation of previous yr developments since 2021, the Court docket relied on experiences pertaining to the accused’s life historical past, jail conduct and psychological well being evaluations in its demise penalty choices,” the report acknowledged.
‘Loss of life Penalty in India: Annual Statistics Report 2024’, accessed by The Indian Categorical, states that on the finish of 2024, there have been 564 demise row prisoners in jails throughout India, the best quantity since 2000.
In 2024, of the 139 demise sentences awarded by trial courts, 87 (62%) had been imposed in homicide instances and 35 (25%) in instances of homicide involving sexual offences. It is a reversal from the earlier yr, when extra demise sentences had been imposed in instances of homicide involving sexual offences (59) than in easy homicide instances (40).
In 2023, the trial courts had awarded 122 demise sentences.
“Whereas trial court docket demise sentences for sexual offences noticed a noticeable lower since 2019, Excessive Court docket confirmations and commutations (the place demise sentences had been decreased to life imprisonment with out the potential for remission), concerned sexual offences,” the report acknowledged.
Excessive Courts throughout the nation — in Haryana, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Punjab, and Telangana — confirmed the demise sentences of 9 convicts.
The whole variety of demise row prisoners (564 in 2024) has risen yearly since 2019, when there have been 378 inmates on demise row. In 2024, 17 girls had been on demise row.
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The report attributes the excessive variety of demise row convicts to a pattern of “excessive imposition of demise sentences at trial courts, and the low charges of demise penalty attraction disposals at Excessive Courts”. The very best variety of demise sentences had been handed in Uttar Pradesh at 34, adopted by Kerala at 20 and West Bengal at 18.
It additionally discovered that in 90.5% of the 139 demise sentences awarded by the trial courts in 2024, “no details about the accused (together with experiences on their psychiatric evaluations, jail conduct and life circumstances) was sought or relied upon when imposing the demise penalty”. The SC in Manoj v. State of Madhya Pradesh (2022) had dominated that courts should take into account this info in demise penalty instances.
Underneath Part 366 of the Prison Process Code, 1973, and Part 407 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, demise sentence proceedings have to be forwarded to the Excessive Court docket for affirmation earlier than they are often executed. In 2024, Excessive Courts determined 87 instances whereas trial courts imposed 139 demise penalties.
Excessive Courts confirmed the demise sentences of 9 convicts, the best since 2019 (26). Of the 9 confirmations, 5 had been in instances of homicide involving sexual offence, 3 in easy homicide and one in a case of kidnapping with homicide.
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In Excessive Court docket instances as properly, the report states that the “demise penalty appeals had been disposed of with out searching for details about the accused together with mitigation experiences, jail conduct experiences and psychiatric evaluations”. Except for confirmations, the Excessive Courts commuted the sentence of 79 convicts, acquitted 49, and despatched the case of 1 convict again to the trial court docket in 2024.
