PREVIOUS
✖
Supreme Court on death Penalty
February 7 , 2026
13 hrs 0 min
15
0
- The Supreme Court has not confirmed a single death penalty in the past three years.
- It was according to an annual statistics report on death penalties in India.
- It was published by the Square Circle Clinic, a criminal justice initiative at the NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad.
- In fact, in 2025, the top court acquitted 10 prisoners who had been on death row.
- It was the highest number of such acquittals in the past decade.
- The report examined death penalty trends across India over the past 10 years.
- It found that the sessions courts handed down 1,310 death sentences nationwide between 2016 and 2025.
- The lower courts sentenced 128 individuals to death in 2025 alone.
High rate of acquittals
- Of the 1,310 death sentences, 842 verdicts were handed down by the High Courts.
- Of which 70 — that is, just 8.31% — were confirmed.
- The High Court acquitted 285 people on death row.
- While 411 death sentences were commuted.
- The Supreme Court’s stance has been even more restrictive, with no death sentence confirmed in the past three years.
- Also, in cases where sessions courts-imposed death sentences which were confirmed by the High Courts, not a single sentence has yet been affirmed by the Supreme Court.
- Of the 37 such death sentences which have been decided by the Supreme Court, 15 resulted in acquittal, and 14 were commuted.
- The report also showed that India had 574 prisoners — 550 men and 24 women — on death row as of December 31, 2025.
- The average time spent on death row before acquittal was over five years, with some prisoners languishing for nearly a decade before being exonerated.
- However, 138 individuals were also removed from death row during the year through acquittals, commutations, or remand orders.
- One of the report’s most alarming findings concerns procedural violations at the sentencing stage.
- There were clear guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court in Manoj vs State of Madhya Pradesh.
- It mandates psychological evaluations, prison conduct reports, and mitigation hearings.
- They were elevated to a fair trial right requirement in Vasanta Sampat Dupare vs Union of India.
- But in 2025, nearly 95% of death sentences in 2025 were imposed without compliance.
- Sentencing hearings were frequently conducted within days of conviction, leaving little scope for meaningful defence representation.
- Another emerging trend is the growing use of life imprisonment without remission as an alternative to the death penalty.
Leave a Reply
Your Comment is awaiting moderation.