Because a crime is exceptionally brutal or grotesque, the death penalty can be imposed only in cases where the possibility of a convict’s reformation is completely ruled out, the Supreme Court has held, underlining that the possibility of reform cannot be presumed absent merely.
Sandeep Mehta and Vijay Bishnoi, the prosecution must establish that life imprisonment is unquestionably inadequate as an alternative to capital punishment , and that the death sentence must be reserved for cases where the alternative of imprisonment for life is demonstrably foreclosed, according to a bench of justices Vikram Nath.
The psychological evaluation did not disclose any condition from which incorrigibility could be inferred. The state, meanwhile, had produced no evidence establishing that the possibility of reform could be ruled out. The judgment also criticised the trial court for convicting and sentencing the accused to death on the same day, without a separate, meaningful hearing on sentence as required by law. The Supreme Court subsequently obtained additional material concerning his social and psychological background and prison conduct to ensure that the sentencing decision rested on a complete record. The court described the substituted punishment as one of the utmost severity, second only to death.
The court considered several mitigating circumstances, including the convict’s account of childhood deprivation and adult misfortune, the absence of previous criminal convictions, satisfactory conduct in custody, continuing family ties, his age of about 56 years and the nearly eight years he had spent in prison, including around seven under the shadow of a death sentence.
The court said these circumstances deserved genuine and substantial weight in deciding whether the ultimate punishment was warranted. It would ensure that the convict remained behind bars for the rest of his life, it said, while preserving the possibility of reformation that an irreversible death sentence would extinguish.
Court commutes death sentence in child rape-murder case
The court, however, directed that he remain in prison for the remainder of his natural life, without the possibility of remission, holding that this was an appropriate punishment given the gravity of the crime. The judgment emphasised that the sentencing exercise must consider the circumstances of the offender alongside those of the crime, rather than allow the enormity of the offence to eclipse every mitigating factor. Applying this principle, the bench commuted the death sentence of a man convicted of repeatedly sexually assaulting his six-year-old stepdaughter and murdering her in 2018.
The court said the death penalty was justified only when life imprisonment was “unquestionably foreclosed”.
