Trial Courts Imposed 165 Death Sentences in 2022, Highest in 2 Decades

Trial courts imposed 165 death sentences in 2022 alone, which is the highest in a single year since 2000.

Though the figure in 2022, saw a sharp rise due to the “unprecedented” sentencing of 38 people to death in an Ahmedabad bomb blast case, sexual offences continue to make up the majority of cases in which the death penalty was imposed in 2022.

Around 51.2 percent of all death penalty cases in trial courts were for crimes involving sexual violence, while murder accounted for 33.33% of all cases. 

This data was brought to the fore by Project 39A of National Law University (NLU) Delhi in the seventh edition of its report titled eath Penalty in India: Annual Statistics 2022."

What Could Be Causing The Rise?

According to Anup Surendranath, an NLU law professor and the executive director of Project 39A, the rise in the use of death penalty has occurred post-pandemic.

“Trial courts have resumed imposing a high number of death sentences since the dip in 2020 due to the pandemic (which was the lowest at 77),” he told the Times of India. 

He added that there is an “ever-widening gap” between the top court's guidance on handing out death penalties and the trial courts’ “blatant disregard for procedural guarantees," which has been “repeatedly established” in research by Project 39A.

Further, according to him, even though Appellate courts continue to commute or acquit a majority o f cases handed over to them by trial courts, the cases are disposed off too slowly, resulting in an increase in the total death row population.

As of 31st December 2022, the total number of death row prisoners stood at 539 , the largest death row population since 2004, as per data published by the National Crime Records Bureau.

What Has The Supreme Court Said?

In September 2022, the report notes that, the Supreme Court had acknowledged the inherent gaps within the current sentencing framework.

Under the tenure of then Chief Justice of India U.U. Lalit, the top court moved to reconsider the death penalty sentencing framework for the first time since 1980.

“Through a suo motu writ, the Supreme Court specifically highlighted the lack of uniformity in the death penalty sentencing framework and referred issues in death penalty sentencing to a Constitution Bench towards ensuring ‘real, effective and meaningful’ sentencing hearing for a convict,” the report says.

Further, in Manoj v. State of Madhya Pradesh, (2022) the Supreme Court acknowledged the lack of an institutional framework to guide the process of compiling mitigating circumstances before considering the sentence in death penalty cases, and laid down guidelines for the collection of materials relevant to the sentencing process.