India’s Death Penalty: Is Hanging On Hold?

Aakhir Tak – In Shorts

The Supreme Court of India has not confirmed any death sentences for two consecutive years.
The last hangings in India were in 2020, involving the Nirbhaya case convicts.
Many countries have abolished capital punishment, but India retains a legal framework for it.
Lower courts issued 139 death sentences in 2024, but the Supreme Court did not uphold them.
By the end of 2024, there were 564 prisoners on death row in India, the highest since 2000.

Aakhir Tak – In Depth

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No capital punishment has been approved by the Supreme Court for a second year in a row in India. The last hangings in India were in 2020, when the Nirbhaya case convicts were executed. Though India hasn’t officially scrapped capital punishment, despite repeated calls from several quarters, the Supreme Court, it seems, is exercising the utmost restraint when it comes to sending convicts to the gallows. The Death Penalty debate continues.

The Supreme Court’s Stance

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In 2024, for the second consecutive year, the Supreme Court of India didn’t confirm any death sentence, revealed a report from Project 39A of the National Law University Delhi. The Supreme Court, it seems, is exercising the utmost restraint on capital punishment, which has seen calls from several quarters to be scrapped. The sparing use of the hangman’s noose wasn’t always the case in India, as was reminded by Vikramaditya Motwane’s Netflix series Black Warrant. The series, which has won praise, explored the rampant nature of capital punishment through the lens of five executions in Tihar Jail between 1982 and 1985. The Supreme Court’s not confirming any death sentence in two years makes us probe if India is gradually loosening the hangman’s noose?

Rising Number of Death Row Prisoners

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This comes even as the number of death row prisoners has gone up significantly in India. In India, capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is carried out by “hanging by the neck until death”, as per the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) that replaced the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). The death penalty remains a contentious issue.

Global Trends

Even as several countries like Portugal, the Netherlands, France and Australia have moved towards abolishing executions, and many countries are opting for less painful methods of capital punishment, countries like the US, Iran, China and India have retained a legal framework to enable the death penalty in one way or the other. The global trend leans towards abolition.

Rarest of Rare Cases

Capital punishment, which the Supreme Court has repeatedly stated should be used only in the rarest of rare cases, was last carried out in 2020 when four convicts in the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder case, also known as the Nirbhaya case, were hanged.

The NLU report published in January, also revealed that the Supreme Court in 2024 commuted five death sentences to life imprisonment and acquitted one person out of six appellants.

The report noted that even as lower trial courts continued to impose death sentences, with 139 such verdicts in 2024, the Supreme Court was reluctant to confirm them.

A Shift in Approach?

Is the Supreme Court’s approach signaling a shift in India’s use of capital punishment? Does it align with lower court rulings on death sentences? Let’s have a look.

Lower Courts and High Courts

High Courts across India confirmed death sentences of nine convicts in 2024, the highest number in five years. But the High Courts also commuted the sentences of 79 convicts, acquitted 49, and sent one case back to the trial court, revealed the NLU report. However, this still represents a small fraction of the total death sentences imposed by trial courts.

Despite the lack of executions in the past few years in India, the number of prisoners on death row has increased significantly. By the end of 2024, there were 564 prisoners awaiting execution, the highest number since 2000.

The rise is a result of a high rate of death sentences imposed by trial courts and a low rate of disposal of death penalty appeals at the High Court level.

“This reflects a continuing and unabated increase in the death row population, with a 41% increase since the compilation of the Annual Statistics report in 2016. Trial courts contributed to these high figures by imposing 139 death sentences in 2024,” noted the report of Project 39A.

The number of prisoners on death row in India has steadily increased from 404 in 2020 to 564 in 2024.

Black Warrants and Executions in India

Since 1991, 16 convicts have been hanged to death in India. Among them were Ajmal Kasab, Afzal Guru and Yakub Memon, who were hanged for waging war against the state, and Dhananjoy Chatterjee, who was executed for the rape and murder of a 14-year-old schoolgirl.

The hanging of the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder convicts in March 2020 was the first time in Independent India that four people were hanged at the same site.

A death warrant or black warrant is issued when a convict has exhausted all legal resources and is to be executed. A black warrant is addressed to the jail in-charge and is signed by a sessions judge or district magistrate.

Why is Death Penalty Still Legal?

The death sentence in India, since the days of Constituent Assembly debates, has remained a complex issue. The Constitution does not prevent death sentences but has mention of it in the articles underlining the powers of the President. India continues to have provisions for the death penalty for crimes, including murder, terrorism, organised crime, and rape under both the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and special laws like the Army Act and Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.

Although the Supreme Court has said that death penalties should be used in the rarest of rare cases, it has also upheld the constitutional validity of them. The top court’s exceptional endorsement on the matter has “mitigation circumstances”, of specific cases, based on the philosophy of restorative justice, at the centre. The judiciary emphasizes reform and rehabilitation.

Unlike retributive justice that calls for punishments proportionate to crime, restorative justice seeks to repair the damage, restore well-being, achieve justice and reform the convict. Here, the Supreme Court in its interpretation of the laws has put the onus of reform of the convicts on the state (not the provincial unit, but India), and has called for death sentences and exceptions. Thus, a potential for reform or change in the convicted individual is considered a key exception to imposing a death sentence.

The Project 39A report on capital punishments comes weeks after a Supreme Court bench observed just the same as it commuted the death sentence of a UP man convicted of brutally murdering his wife and four minor daughters.

“This [Supreme] court has consistently recognised that the imposition of capital punishment is an exception and not the rule. Even where multiple murders have been committed, if there is evidence or at least a reasonable possibility of reform, a lesser sentence must be preferred,” noted the three-judge Supreme Court bench in January 2025.

Moreover, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) 2023, which replaced the Indian Penal Code, has increased the number of offences punishable by death from 12 to 18. The legislative framework remains complex.

Even as the Supreme Court has made these progressive observations relating to the death sentences, no policy-driven change, enabling a legislative move to abolish capital punishment has been undertaken. Also, death sentences have not effectively deterred heinous crimes. Although the Supreme Court is making a move, India does not appear to be moving towards laxing capital punishments at this juncture. India’s approach is nuanced.

Aakhir Tak – Key Takeaways to Remember

India has had no hangings in 5 years. Is India moving away from the Death Penalty? The Supreme Court is cautious, but the law remains.