Annual Death Penalty Report 2023

Context- As per the Annual Death Penalty Report 2023, appellate Courts in India – SC and all the HCs together – confirmed only one death sentence in 2023 while the rest were either commuted or saw the prisoners acquitted altogether.

Key Highlights of the Annual Death Penalty Report 2023

• Only one death sentence was confirmed with the aid of a High Court (the Karnataka HC in a homicide case) in 2023, marking the lowest rate by the appellate courts considering the fact that 2000.
  • In 2022, HCs confirmed the death sentences of four convicts, five in 2021 and three in 2020.
  • The dip was steep after 2019 while HCs confirmed death sentences of 26 convicts.
• This year (2023) also saw the Supreme Court now not confirming any death sentences, the second time considering the fact that 2021.
• There has been a 15% lower  in the fee of disposal of death penalty affirmation lawsuits on the HCs in 2023.
  • 57 death penalty instances had been disposed of in 2023, in comparison with 68 cases in 2022.
• This tremendous decline in the case disposal rate of death penalties is attributed to the excessive death row population in the country.
  • There was a 45.71% growth within the number of prisoners under death sentence by the stop of December 2023, from that during 2016.
  • With 120 death sentences (167 in 2022) imposed through trial courts and 561 prisoners under the sentence of death by the end of December, 2023 had the best quantity of prisoners on death row in almost two decades.
• Similar to the final 5 years, the bulk of death penalty instances in trial courts worried crimes associated with sexual offences.
  • Of the 120 death sentences imposed with the aid of trial courts, more than 50% were for homicidal rapes.

Key Takeaways from the Findings of the Annual Death Penalty Report 2023:

• Under Section 366 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), all death sentences awarded by trial courts are to be shown by the involved HCs.
  • Both the conviction and the quantum of sentence are examined by way of the primary appellate court (HCs).
• Acquittal and remand by way of the SC and HCs in 2023 indicate widespread concerns with the quality of police investigations and appreciation of evidence by lower courts in cases.
  • For instance, in acquitting six prisoners in five instances and remanding two instances involving two prisoners, the SC criticised negligence in investigation and trials.
  • In one specifically grievous case, it found that the prisoner was a minor at the time of the offence, 28 years after his imprisonment.
• The trial courts-imposed death sentences in 86.96% of its cases within the absence of any records relating to the accused, despite the SC’s mandate in Manoj v. State of Madhya Pradesh (2022).
  • In this case, SC mandated the Trial Courts to accumulate psychiatric and mental assessment reports of the accused earlier than awarding the death sentence.

Recent Developments with respect to Capital Punishment

• Recently, Ghana (in which the Parliament passed a Bill to abolish the death penalty for ordinary crimes) and Malaysia (eliminated the necessary death penalty for 11 crook offences)are a number of the global tendencies in death penalty legal guidelines.
• However, in India, the passing of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) 2023 would increase the range of offences punishable by using death from 12 under the Indian Penal Code (1860) to 18 under the Act.

Source: The Hindu

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