Facts in Brief

Bachan Singh was tried, convicted and sentenced to death under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for the murder of Desa Singh, Durga Bai and Veeran Bai. The High Court confirmed the death penalty imposed on him. Appealing by special leave, he — along with other prisoners — challenged the constitutional validity of the death penalty provided under the Section, as well as the sentencing procedure laid down in Section 354(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.

Arguments

The Appellant argued that the imposition of the death penalty under Section 302 of the IPC, read with Section 354(3) of the CrPC, was arbitrary and unreasonable because: (a) it was cruel and inhuman, disproportionate and excessive; (b) it was wholly unnecessary and served no social purpose nor advanced any constitutional value; and (c) the discretion conferred on the court to award the death penalty was not guided by any policy or principle laid down by the legislature, but was wholly arbitrary.

The State defended the provision on the ground that the question of the constitutional validity of the death penalty had already been concluded by the decision of a Constitution Bench of five Judges in Jagmohan Singh v. State of U.P., AIR 1973 SC 947, and therefore could not be re-agitated. It was further submitted that: (a) the death penalty was neither cruel nor inhuman, neither disproportionate nor excessive; (b) it did serve a social purpose, inasmuch as it fulfilled two penological goals — denunciation by the community and deterrence; and (c) the judicial discretion in awarding the death penalty was not arbitrary, as the court could always evolve standards or norms to guide the exercise of its discretion in this punitive area.

Judgment

The Apex Court dismissed the challenge to the constitutionality of Section 302 of the IPC insofar as it provided for the death sentence, and also dismissed the challenge to the constitutionality of Section 354(3) of the CrPC. The Court propounded the principle of the “rarest of rare cases” in the awarding of the death penalty. It observed that a real and abiding concern for the dignity of human life postulated a resistance to taking a life through the instrumentality of law. However, that ought not to be done save in the rarest of rare cases, when the alternative option is unquestionably foreclosed. The constitutionality of the provisions imposing the death penalty was accordingly upheld.

For the Common Man

The Apex Court laid down the doctrine of the “rarest of rare case” for the purpose of awarding the death penalty. The case thus laid a strong foundation for identifying an extraordinary case with prevailing special circumstances, in which the death penalty may be imposed on the accused, his case being one of the rarest of rare. A significant limitation on the arbitrary imposition of the death penalty thus solidified in the form of the “rarest of rare” principle, which has now become the yardstick for awarding the death penalty in the Indian judiciary.