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SC: Life term is rule, death penalty is exception
Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, November 28
The Supreme Court today held that that “life imprisonment is the rule and death sentence is an exception.” A Bench comprising Justices BS Chauhan and SA Bobde gave the ruling while commuting the extreme penalty awarded to two convicts for kidnapping and beheading a person and looting about Rs 4 lakh in 2005.

“The penalty of death sentence may be warranted only in a case where the court comes to the conclusion that imposition of life imprisonment is totally inadequate having regard to the relevant circumstances of the crime,” a Bench comprising Justices BS Chauhan and SA Bobde observed.

The circumstances and the manner of committing the crime should be such that it “pricks the judicial conscience of the court to the extent that the only and inevitable conclusion should be awarding of death penalty”, the SC Bench explained.

“The extreme penalty of death need not be inflicted except in gravest cases of extreme culpability. Before opting for the death penalty the circumstances of the offender are also required to be taken into consideration along with the circumstances of the crime for the reason that life imprisonment is the rule and death sentence is an exception,” it reasoned.

Further, the condition of providing special reasons for awarding death penalty was not to be construed linguistically but it was to satisfy the basic features of a reasoning supporting and making award of death penalty unquestionable, the SC said.

In the present case, the victim had collected the money from a borrower and was returning home when the convicts kidnapped and beheaded him and threw the head into a river which was never recovered.

“We are of the considered view that it is not a fit case where the death sentence awarded to the appellants should be affirmed...ends of justice would meet if they are awarded the sentence of 30 years without remission,” the apex court ruled.