How the Supreme Court shaped due process in death penalty cases

Why in the News

The Supreme Court’s rule that life imprisonment is the norm and death the exception has largely failed to reach trial courts, which in 2025 skipped the mandated sentencing procedure in 95.18% of assessable cases. A former Supreme Court judge traced the Court’s safeguards since 1980, marking the Day Against the Death Penalty. The gap pits sentencing on the person against sentencing on the crime alone.

What did Bachan Singh lay down?

1. Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab (1980): A Constitution Bench upheld the death penalty but set guidelines for judicial discretion under Section 354(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
2. Current provision: The rule now sits in Section 393(3) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023, which replaced the CrPC.
3. Individualised sentencing: Courts weigh the accused with the crime, like a doctor treating the patient, not just the illness. Death needs “special reasons” and life imprisonment “unquestionably foreclosed” (ruled out).
4. Dignity, not rarity: Death is the exception out of “a real and abiding concern for the dignity of human life”. The State must prove the accused cannot be reformed.
5. The takeaway: A death sentence depends on careful inquiry into the person, so procedure is itself the safeguard.

How did sentencing drift back to the crime?

1. Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab (1983): This ruling turned the inquiry back to the crime, as Sangeet v. State of Haryana (2013) later acknowledged.
2. Ravji v. State of Rajasthan (1995): A two judge Bench held that the gravity of the offence, not the criminal’s circumstances, decided punishment.
3. Executions on a wrong principle: Ravji was hanged in May 1996 and Surja Ram in April 1997.
4. Santosh Kumar Bariyar v. State of Maharashtra (2009): Ravji was held per incuriam, decided in ignorance of Bachan Singh. It had been followed in at least six other cases.
5. “Gravest known miscarriage of justice”: In 2012, 14 retired judges used these words for the two executions.

How has the Court rebuilt the sentencing procedure?

1. Reformation as the test: Bariyar held life imprisonment ruled out only when the accused cannot be reformed. The 262nd Law Commission Report (2015) also backed reformation.
2. Manoj v. State of Madhya Pradesh (2022): The State must produce mental health evaluations, reports on conduct in custody and a probation officer’s report on the accused.
3. Defence opportunity: A suo motu case, taken up by the Court itself and now before a Constitution Bench, requires a real chance for the defence to present material on sentence.
4. Vasanta Sampat Dupare v. Union of India (2025): A death sentence passed without a Manoj-compliant hearing is unconstitutional and can be reopened even after appeals end.
5. Constitutional basis: Dupare traced that hearing to Article 14 (equality before law) and Article 21 (life and personal liberty).

Why does the promise remain unfulfilled in trial courts?

1. Waris v. State of Madhya Pradesh (September 2026): The Court commuted a death sentence for a child’s rape and murder, because the State led no evidence that reform was impossible.
2. Trial court record: Trial courts sentenced 128 people to death in 2025.
3. Same-day sentencing: In a study of 306 death sentences, over a third came on the day of conviction. Most had no defence evidence on mitigation, the circumstances that reduce blame.
4. Acquittals on appeal: Nearly a third of High Court and Supreme Court death sentence decisions in the past decade ended in acquittal, exposing flawed investigations.

Challenges

1. Crime-centred habit: Trial courts still sentence largely on the gravity of the crime, the approach Bachan Singh rejected.
2. State’s evidence gap: The State often leads no evidence on reformation, though the burden lies on it.
3. Irreversible error: An error-prone system cannot safely impose an irreversible punishment. Eg. The Ravji and Surja Ram executions.

Way Forward

1. Reports before sentence: Trial courts should pass no death sentence until the Manoj reports are on record.
2. Separate sentencing hearing: High Courts should require a gap between conviction and sentence, so mitigation can be gathered.
3. Review past sentences: Reopen death sentences passed without a Manoj-compliant hearing, as Dupare permits.

Conclusion

The Supreme Court has turned Bachan Singh’s promise into a procedural right, but trial courts have not absorbed it. Watch whether the pending Constitution Bench reference makes that hearing enforceable in trial courts.

Key numbers

1. Study period: death sentences imposed from 2018 to 2020.
2. Pronounced on the day of conviction: 36.1%; another 18.4% the next day.
3. Supreme Court death penalty acquittals (2025): ten of 19 cases.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2014, GS2, 12 marks] Instances of President’s delay in commuting death sentences has come under public debate as denial of justice. Should there be a time limit specified for the President to accept/reject such petitions? Analyse.”