165 Death Sentences Awarded By Trial Courts In 2022, Highest Ever In A Year Since 2000 : Project 39A Report

Project 39A at National Law University, Delhi published the seventh edition of the Death Penalty in India: Annual Statistics Report which provides an annual review of the use of the death penalty in India along with legislative and international developments on the issue.

Overview of Death Sentences

In 2022, trial courts imposed death sentences on 165 persons - the largest number of death sentences imposed in a single year in over two decades since 2000. This sharp rise is influenced by the extraordinary and unprecedented sentencing of 38 people to death in a single case in Gujarat. At the end of the year, there were 539 prisoners on death row across India, with Uttar Pradesh having the highest number at 100. This is the highest the death row population in India has been since 2004 as per data from the Prison Statistics of India Reports published by the National Crime Records Bureau.

Continued Dominance of Sexual Violence Cases in Death Penalty

51.2% of all death penalty cases in trial courts were for crimes involving rape, while murder accounted for 33.33% of all cases. This was a trend that began in 2019, following major legislative and political changes on the death penalty for sexual violence, and has continued each year since.

Appellate Courts

High courts continued to decide few matters - 68 cases involving 101 prisoners this year - in comparison to the high imposition of death sentences by trial courts. This is a factor that has influenced the increasing death row population across India.

From the cases decided by the High Courts, 3 prisoners had their death sentences confirmed, 48 prisoners saw their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment, 43 were acquitted of all charges and 6 had their cases remitted to the trial court. Notably, the Bombay High Court enhanced a sentence of life imprisonment to death, in the second High Court enhancement since 2016. On the other hand, the Supreme Court acquitted 5 prisoners in 3 cases, commuted the death sentences of 8 prisoners in 6 cases and confirmed the death sentences of 2 prisoners in 2 cases.

While appellate courts commuted the majority of death sentences from trial courts, these commutations have increasingly resulted in life sentences that exclude remission either for fixed terms or for the rest of the prisoner’s life. The Supreme Court imposed life imprisonment without remission for all 8 prisoners, whereas High Courts imposed the same for over 56.6% prisoners whose sentences were commuted this year.

Developments in the Law

This year presented landmark developments in the Indian death penalty sentencing framework. In a historic moment, the Supreme Court convened a Constitution Bench to determine whether imposing death sentences on the same day as conviction was constitutional, and referred the question of the components of an effective sentencing hearing to the larger Bench.

In Manoj v. State of Madhya Pradesh, a bench led by Chief Justice of India UU Lalit, with Justice Ravindra Bhat and Justice Bela M Trivedi laid down guidelines that require trial courts to actively collect jail conduct and psychiatric evaluation reports of the accused during sentencing, and reiterated the State’s burden to lead evidence on reform. The Court noted that evidence of mitigating circumstances were hardly placed on record, leaving the accused disadvantaged in the sentencing hearing. Project 39A’s data confirms this fact, revealing that trial courts imposed death sentences in 98.3% death penalty cases without materials on mitigating circumstances and without evidence from the state on reformation.

However, the Supreme Court presented a stark contrast in the 2 cases in which the death sentences were confirmed for 2 prisoners. In one confirmation, a bench led by Justices A M Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and C T Ravikumar rejected the process in Manoj as being “unwarranted”. In the second confirmation, the same bench as in Manoj did not mention any of its own statements on requirements of sentencing while confirming the death sentence for an accused in a terror case.

In its acquittals across 3 cases involving 5 prisoners, the Supreme Court highlighted the deplorable state of investigation which involved fabricated evidence and manipulated FIRs. The Court also criticised the trial court’s failures to examine the evidence as per the requirements of the law and to ensure adequate legal representation for the accused.

In an important development for legal challenges to the rejection of a mercy petition, the Supreme Court recognised the mental health impact of prolonged solitary confinement as a supervening ground to commute a death sentence.