The Death Penalty Reforms: All about it.

 ~Preet.

Recently, a Supreme Court (SC) Bench agreed to thoroughly scrutinise processes in death penalty cases in order to guarantee that judges who must choose between life imprisonment and the death penalty have complete sentencing information. Previously, the Supreme Court expressed concerns about the procedure of assessing mitigating facts in death penalty cases. The court is reforming the procedures for bringing information required in a death penalty case before the courts. In doing so, the Supreme Court expresses its dissatisfaction with the method in which death sentence sentencing is carried out. While the death sentence has been declared legitimate, the way in which it has been carried out has sparked complaints of injustice and arbitrariness.

Capital punishment, commonly known as the death penalty, is the execution of an offender condemned to death after being found guilty of a criminal offence by a court of law. It is the most severe sentence that may be imposed on an offender. In general, it is given in the most heinous situations of murder, rape, treachery, and so on. The death sentence is seen as the most appropriate punishment and most effective deterrence for the most heinous offences. Those who reject it, on the other hand, perceive it as cruel. As a result, the morality of the death sentence is questionable, and many criminologists and socialists throughout the world have long advocated for its elimination.

When the Supreme Court confirmed the constitutionality of the death sentence in Bachan Singh's case in May 1980, a framework was established for future judges to follow when faced with the choice between life imprisonment and the death penalty. The acknowledgment that the legislature had made it plain in the Criminal Procedure Code that life imprisonment would be the default punishment and judges would need to establish "special grounds" if they sought to impose the death penalty was at the heart of that framework. The Supreme Court said in the 1980 framework — commonly but incorrectly regarded as the "rarest of rare" framework — that judges must examine both aggravating and mitigating elements surrounding the crime and the accused while deciding whether to impose the death sentence. The decision also said that life imprisonment as a sentence would have to be "unquestionably precluded" before judges could inflict the death penalty. There was a suggestive list of elements recognised as significant by the ruling, but it was apparent that it was not meant to be an entire list. The Supreme Court has often regretted the inconsistency with which the Bachan Singh framework has been applied. The Law Commission of India has highlighted similar concerns (262nd Report).

A criminal trial is divided into two parts: the guilt stage and the sentence stage. Sentencing occurs after the accused has been found guilty of the offence; it is at this point that punishment is decided. As a result, nothing shown or stated during the sentencing process may be used to overturn or modify the judgement of guilt. It is a fundamental premise of criminal law that sentencing must be personalised, which means that the court must consider the accused's specific circumstances while choosing punishment. Mitigation, also known as "mitigating considerations" or "mitigating evidence," is evidence (information) that the defence can offer during the sentencing phase of a capital trial to show why the defendant should not be sentenced to death. The task of gathering such information is not something lawyers are trained to do, which is why the American Bar Association's 2003 Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases recognises the role of a mitigation specialist, who has a clearly defined role that goes beyond what lawyers can do. The Supreme Court's decisions in Santa Singh (1976) and Mohd Mannan (2019) acknowledged the multidisciplinary character of such an exercise and the need for specialists other than attorneys to acquire such material.

Prior to the Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Act (Cr PC) of 1955, the death sentence was the norm in India, with life imprisonment serving as an exception. Furthermore, judges were required to provide a justification for imposing a lesser punishment than death for capital offences. Following the 1955 amendment, judges were free to sentence someone to death or life in prison. Section 354 (3) of the Criminal Procedure Code of 1973 requires courts to provide written reasons for inflicting the maximum sentence. In capital offences, the situation has been flipped, with life sentences being the norm and the death penalty being the uncommon. Additionally, despite the United Nations' global ban on the death sentence, India maintains it. Allowing offenders guilty of purposeful, cold-blooded, deliberate, and cruel murders to escape with a lighter sentence, according to India, will strip the law of its effectiveness and result in a farce of justice. In accordance with this, the Law Commission rejected a proposal to abolish the death sentence in its 35th report in 1967. According to official figures, 720 individuals have been executed in India since the country's independence in 1947, representing a small proportion of those sentenced to death by trial courts.

A system that is interested in putting individuals to the experience of death row, and ultimately taking lives via the use of law, must have a very high degree of fairness. With that as a starting point, the criminal justice system must do all possible to guarantee that processes are designed for procedural fairness. The paths of improving the death penalty, on the one hand, and eliminating it, on the other, run parallel for a long time. Every incident of participation in the reform of the death penalty sheds light on the inherent injustice of utilising the death sentence, particularly in a system like ours. In India, the current view on death penalties is well balanced. However, the court's considerable judicial authority has resulted in highly inconsistent decision in identical instances; this does not provide a positive picture of the Indian judiciary. The concept established in cases such as Bachan Singh and Machhi Singh must be scrupulously observed so that a person guilty of an equal offence receives a same degree of punishment.