The Supreme Court on Thursday questioned whether its approach of repeatedly commuting death sentences to life imprisonment could, in certain cases, have unintended consequences for the criminal justice system, with Justice Dipankar Datta observing that the Court’s “forgiving nature” must eventually have a limit.
A Bench comprising Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Sheel Nagu made the observations while hearing a remission plea moved by a murder convict.
Justice Datta remarked that there was a time when the doctrine of “rarest of rare” was invoked against the backdrop of murders being comparatively uncommon. The Judge, however, observed that the situation has changed considerably, with the country witnessing a growing incidence of serious crimes.
During the hearing, Justice Datta referred to a past case involving a father who had sexually assaulted and murdered his elder daughter. The accused was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, with the prosecution case substantially resting on the testimony of the children’s mother.
The convict was subsequently released on parole. Justice Datta recalled that, after his release, he murdered the mother of the children, allegedly in retaliation for her testimony against him. The incident was witnessed by the younger daughter, whose testimony subsequently became material to the prosecution.
The accused was thereafter sentenced to death for the second murder. However, the Supreme Court subsequently commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment, taking into account, among other circumstances, that the younger child had not herself been murdered.
Justice Datta questioned the rationale underlying such repeated commutation in cases involving grave and successive offences.
The Judge observed that the Supreme Court would, at some stage, have to “draw a line” while exercising its power to commute death sentences.
The Bench’s remarks came in the context of a plea concerning remission of sentence by a person convicted of murder. The discussion also touched upon the evolving contours of the “rarest of rare” doctrine and the Court’s sentencing jurisprudence in capital punishment cases.
Justice Datta expressed concern over the consequences of what he described as the Court’s excessive leniency, observing that the criminal justice system must also account for the wider impact of serious offences and the possibility of recidivism.
The observations assume significance in the context of the Supreme Court’s established jurisprudence that death penalty can be imposed only in the “rarest of rare” cases, while also recognising the possibility of commuting a capital sentence to life imprisonment after weighing aggravating and mitigating circumstances.
The Bench is continuing to examine the remission plea before it.
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