The Hindu : National : Supreme Court reiterates norms for death sentence

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Thursday, Dec 14, 2006
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Supreme Court reiterates norms for death sentence

J. Venkatesan

It can be awarded in rarest of rare cases

NEW DELHI: "When a statute provides for [the] death penalty, so long as the same is not ultra vires, application thereof cannot be altogether eliminated," the Supreme Court has said.

A Bench of Justices S.B. Sinha and Dalveer Bhandari said: "[The] Death penalty can be awarded only if, in the opinion of the court, the case answers the description of rarest of rare cases. What would constitute a rarest of rare cases must be determined in the fact situation obtaining in each case."

Holding that it was not a rarest of rare case warranting the death penalty, the Bench in the instant case modified the death sentence imposed on Aloke Nath Dutta, a policeman, by a trial court in West Bengal and confirmed by the Calcutta High Court, into life imprisonment. The Bench also acquitted three other accomplices and ordered their release.

The Bench said: "We must remind ourselves that there has been a growing demand in the international fora that [the] death penalty should be abolished. Pursuant to or in furtherance of the pressure exerted by various international NGOs, several countries have abolished [the] death penalty. The superior courts of several countries have been considering the said demand keeping in view the international covenants, conventions and protocol."

Mr. Justice Sinha said that sentencing indisputably was a part of criminal jurisprudence and in the death penalty reference matters required serious deliberation. The Bench quoted an earlier judgment and reiterated the guidelines for death sentence.

Norms reiterated

When the murder is committed in an extremely brutal, grotesque, diabolical, revolting or dastardly manner so as to arouse intense and extreme indignation of the community; when the murder is committed for a motive, which evinces total depravity and meanness; e.g. murder by hired assassin for money or reward; or cold-blooded murder for gains of a person vis-à-vis whom the murderer is in a dominating position or in a position of trust; or murder is committed in the course of betrayal of the motherland; when murder of a member of a Scheduled Caste or minority community, etc, is committed not for personal reasons but in circumstances which arouse social wrath; or in cases of bride burning or dowry deaths or when murder is committed in order to remarry for the sake of extracting dowry once again or to marry another woman on account of infatuation.

When the crime is enormous in proportion: for instance when multiple murders, say of all or almost all the members of a family or a large number of persons of a particular caste, community or locality are committed; when the victim of murder is an innocent child or a hapless woman or old or infirm person or a person vis-à-vis whom the murderer is in a dominating position, or a public figure generally loved and respected by the community.

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