Acquitted After Noose : Supreme Court Upheld No Death Sentence In 2025, But Acquittals Came After Years On Death Row

With Surendra Koli—the last remaining in the 2006 Nithari killings—walking free after the Supreme Court acquitted him, once again, debate has resurfaced whether establishing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is attainable.Koli's case was not the only case which ended up in an acquittal this year. LiveLaw covered as many as 15 matters relating to the death penalty awarded in the 'rarest of rare' gruesome murder and rape cases. In none of the cases, the Supreme Court this year affirmed the death penalty.In this article, we take a look at all 15 judgments to study the percentage of conviction v. acquittal, and the minimum period of incarceration, including on death row. To state it briefly, our analysis reveals a grim and unfortunate but not unexpected picture of the criminal justice system. In 15 death penalty cases reported by us, the average period of incarceration spent by convicts is more than 11 years, and the average period of time spent as a death row convict is 8 years. Out of the 15 cases, acquittals have been awarded in 12 cases on grounds of faulty investigation and prosecution, a hurried and overzealous attempt by the subordinate Courts to arrive at a conviction and failure to give a fair trial to the accused person. In 3 cases, where convictions were affirmed, the death penalty was commuted to life imprisonment without remission, considering that the mitigating circumstances were not considered by the subordinate Courts. Shoddy investigation /gaping holes in prosecution story1. SURENDRA KOLI versus THE STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH & ANR, the Supreme Court acquitted Surendra Koli for charges of rape, abduction and murder, after it was found that on the same piece of alleged confession which led to the recoveries, his conviction in one case was sustained in 2011, but in 12 other cases, it were set aside as unreliable by the Allahabad High Court in 2023. The Court held that upholding a conviction based on evidence already declared involuntary or inadmissible in identical cases would violate both Article 21 (right to life and fair procedure) and Article 14 (equality before law).It attributed negligence, procedural lapses, and delay to the prosecution, which “corroded the fact-finding process” and foreclosed avenues that might have led to the real perpetrator. The Court expressed “deep regret” that despite a prolonged probe, the actual identity of the offender had not been established in a manner that met legal standards. By this judgment, it allowed a curative petition filed by Koli against the 2011 judgment of the Supreme Court, which had confirmed his conviction in one of the cases. He challenged his conviction, arguing that the same evidence used to convict him was later found unreliable in the other cases where he has since been acquitted.The incident dates back to 2006, in which the Trial Court sentenced him to death in 2007, which the High Court affirmed in 2009 and the Supreme Court in 2011. He was to be executed in September 2014 but Supreme Court stayed the execution to allow him to file a review. In 2014, the Court dismissed his review petition. Again it was stayed by the High Court to hear the writ petition filed by him. In 2015, the High Court commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment due to an inordinate delay in deciding mercy petition, and the SLP against this remained pending in the Supreme Court.From 2010 to 2021, he was tried for 12 cases arising from the same circumstances, and the trials proceeded on the same evidentiary grounds. In 2023, the Allahabad High Court acquitted the appellant in all cases on the grounds that the confession, which led to the recovery, was unreliable because he was kept for 60 days in police custody with no access to legal aid etc. Against these, the State preferred appeals, but they were dismissed.2. GAMBHIR SINGH VERSUS THE STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH is a case where a person was convicted on charges of murder of his six family members, including 4 children and a brother. The Supreme Court set aside the conviction and sentence on the grounds of faulty investigation and flawed recovery of evidence. It said that the prosecution could not prove even one of the incriminating circumstances-the motive, last seen theory, and recoveries. It called out the lackadaisical approach of the police and the prosecution because no examination of nearby neighbours to establish the guilt was done. The police failed to safekeep the collected recoveries.The FIR dates back to 2012, and the Trial Court awarded death punishment in 2017, which was affirmed in 2019.Overzealous approach of lower courts to arrive at a conviction3. In BALJINDER KUMAR@KALA v. STATE OF PUNJAB, the Supreme Court acquitted a person on death row, convicted for his four family members, on the grounds that there were major contradictions in the testimonies of key prosecution witnesses marred with glaring investigating defects. The Court remarked that since the matter had garnered some sensation, the...

Acquitted After Noose : Supreme Court Upheld No Death Sentence In 2025, But Acquittals Came After Years On Death Row

Gursimran Kaur Bakshi

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