Rarest of rare test needs society's approval: SC

Rarest of rare test needs society's approval: SC

  The 'rarest of rare case' test is

not 'judge centric' but depends on the perception of society

and whether it would approve the award of death sentence to

those convicted in certain types of crimes, the Supreme Court

has held.

"Courts award death sentence, because situation demands,

due to constitutional compulsion, reflected by the will of the

people, and not judge-centric," a bench headed by Justice K S

Radhakrishnan said.

"To award death sentence, the aggravating circumstances

(crime test) have to be fully satisfied and there should be no

mitigating circumstance (criminal test) favouring the accused.

"Even if both the tests are satisfied as against the

accused, even then the court has to finally apply the rarest

of rare cases test, which depends on the perception of the

society and not judge-centric, that is whether the society

will approve the awarding of death sentence to certain types

of crime," the bench also comprising Justice Dipak Misra said.

The observations were made in a judgement by the apex

court which commuted the death penalty awarded to two men for

hacking to death four members of a family in August, 2000 over

a property dispute, in Punjab.

The apex court modified their punishment to life

imprisonment of 30 years, saying "so far as this case is

concerned the extreme sentence of capital punishment is not

warranted".

Gurvail and Satnam Singh were awarded death penalty by a

trial court in 2000. The punishment was upheld by the Punjab

and Haryana High Court in 2005.

The court while modifying their punishment said, "Some

of the mitigating circumstances, as enunciated in Machhi Singh

case, come to the rescue of the appellants. Age definitely is

a factor which cannot be ignored, though not determinative

factor in all fact situations. The probability that accused

persons could be reformed and rehabilitated is also a factor

to be borne in mind."

Gurvail was 34-years-old at that time of committing the

crime, while Satnam was 22-years-old.

The apex court in its 13-page judgement also observed

that while awarding death sentence, the court has to look into

variety of factors like "society's abhorrence, extreme

indignation and antipathy to certain types of crimes like rape

and murder of minor girls, especially intellectually

challenged minor girls, minor girls with physical disability,

old and infirm women etc.", and clarified that the examples

are illustrative and not exhaustive.