INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
NEW DELHI: The hearing in the proceedings the Supreme Court had initiated suo motu for inclusion of safeguards to reduce instances of death
penalty took an interesting turn with majority of the lawyers present declaring themselves to be abolitionists.While the SC had limited the
definitions of the attenuating considerations.As a bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra
readied the ground for commencement of hearing in the suo motu proceedings before a five-judge Constitution bench in January, amicus curiae
Sidharth Dave said two major reforms in the sentencing process, for offences punishable with death penalty, needs to be considered.State
govt vs Governors: Supreme Court raises questions over delay in Bill approvalFirst, persons convicted of such offences should be given
adequate time post-conviction to enable them to produce adequate material that could persuade the trial courts or constitutional courts to
consider whether these material constituted adequate mitigating circumstances for non-award of the highest punishment under the penal laws
To facilitate this, the courts must follow a uniform time gap between conviction and sentencing, Dave said.Second, the SC would be required
to deliberate on the necessity of periodic psychological evaluation of the convict in heinous offences, for which award of death sentence is
provided for in the penal laws, to understand whether the person is fit to be executed, he said, adding the in the three-tier justice
delivery system, a person spends on an average more than a decade before the criminal case attains finality with a decision from the
SC.Should an incarcerated convict living under the dehumanising shadow of death penalty for a decade or more during the pendency of his
appeal in the HC or SC be ordered to be executed without his periodic psychological evaluation and placing of such reports before the
for provisioning adequate time gap between conviction and sentencing in a case to allow the convict to place mitigating circumstances before
the court for non-award of death penalty
When the bench scheduled the hearing before a five-judge bench in January, both Dave and Raju said that they were pro abolition of the death
penalty.The SC in Bachan Singh case in 1983 had upheld the constitutionality of the death sentence but ruled that it could be imposed only
The SC had initiated the suo motu proceedings last year for framing guidelines on consideration of mitigating circumstances by courts while
awarding death sentences after noticing the lack of a uniform framework in this regard.While referring the issue to five-judge bench, the SC
