Sealdah judge relies upon SC’s ‘life sentence is rule, death penalty an exception’ principle
Kolkata: With much debate over whether the RG Kar rape and murder was a “rarest of rare cases”, the judgement of the Sealdah Sessions Court which awarded life sentence to the main accused, sought to rely on the judgements of Supreme Court (SC) which stated the criteria for such category of cases while highlighting when “life sentence is rule and death penalty is an exception”.
In his judgement, the Additional Sessions Judge, 1st Court Sealdah, Anirban Das, referred to SC’s landmark judgement in Bachan Singh vs State of Punjab which established the guidelines for imposing death penalty.
The RG Kar case, the judge Das opined, was not the “rarest of the rare”. He observed: “The Supreme Court has consistently emphasised that the death penalty should be used only in exceptional circumstances where the collective conscience of the community is so shocked that it expects the holders of judicial power to inflict the death penalty.”
He highlighted: “The court must resist the temptation to bow to public pressure or emotional appeals and instead focus on delivering a verdict that upholds the integrity of the legal system and serves the broader interests of justice.”
“In the realm of modern justice, we must rise above the primitive instinct of “an eye for an eye” or “a tooth for a tooth” or “nail for a nail” or “a life for a life”. Our duty is not to match brutality with brutality, but to elevate humanity through wisdom, compassion and a deeper understanding of justice. The measure of a civilised society lies not in its ability to exact revenge, but in its capacity to reform, rehabilitate and ultimately to heal,” the judge observed.
In the Bachan Singh case, the SC observed: “Life imprisonment is the rule and the death penalty is the exception… Before opting for the death penalty the circumstances of the ‘offender’ also require to be taken into consideration along with the circumstances of the ‘crime’”.
Later in Machi Singh vs State of Punjab, SC laid down criterions for assessing when a case is “rarest to rarest”. For example, this includes when the victim’s house is set on fire with the intention of baking her alive; when the victim is tortured for inhuman acts leading to her death; when the victim’s body is mercilessly mutilated.
Further, when a murder is intended to be a total depravity and cruelty; if it is a socially heinous crime which also includes dowry deaths; if the magnitude of the crime is high which includes multiple murders, among other criterions.
In support of his judgement, judge Das also quoted SC judgement in Manoj & Ors vs State of Madhya Pradesh which highlighted “Judges should never be blood-thirsty”.
