The Supreme Court shaped due process in death penalty cases through landmark rulings. In Bachan Singh, the court upheld capital punishment but set strict guidelines for judicial discretion. Later, in Manoj v. State of Madhya Pradesh, it prescribed practical guidelines, including mental health evaluations and custody reports for the accused.
In Bachan Singh, the apex court upheld the death penalty but laid down guidelines for judicial discretion; in Manoj v. State of Madhya Pradesh, it prescribed 'practical guidelines', including the submission of mental health evaluations and custody conduct reports of the accused
The Day Against the Death Penalty, observed on October 10, offered a fitting moment to look back on how the Supreme Court's 1980 safeguards, laid down when it upheld capital punishment, have fared over the past four decades.
In Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab (1980), the Constitution Bench upheld the death penalty, but imposed specific conditions in the shape of guidelines for the exercise of judicial discretion. Following the legislative scheme of Section 354(3) of the CrPC, now Section 393(3) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023, life imprisonment was to be the norm, and death sentence could be imposed only for "special reasons". Courts were to weigh the circumstances of the crime alongside those of the accused, and impose death only where life imprisonment was "unquestionably foreclosed".