For second year, no death penalty passes SC test

The SC heard six appeals in 2024 — it commuted five death sentences to life imprisonment while one was acquitted

In 2024, of the 139 death sentences awarded by trial courts, 87 (62%) were imposed in murder cases and 35 (25%) in cases of murder involving sexual offences

Written by: Ajoy Sinha Karpuram

3 min readNew DelhiFeb 11, 2025 06:49 AM IST First published on: Feb 11, 2025 at 03:55 AM IST

REFLECTING A divergence in decision-making on death penalty at different levels in the judiciary, the Supreme Court — for the second consecutive year — did not confirm a single death sentence in 2024 while trial courts awarded 139 such verdicts, according to a report by Project 39A, a criminal justice programme at the National Law University Delhi.

The SC heard six appeals in 2024 — it commuted five death sentences to life imprisonment while one was acquitted. For second year, no death penalty passes SC test while one was acquitted.

“In a continuation of past year trends since 2021, the Court relied on reports pertaining to the accused’s life history, jail conduct and mental health evaluations in its death penalty decisions,” the report stated.

‘Death Penalty in India: Annual Statistics Report 2024’, accessed by The Indian Express, states that at the end of 2024, there were 564 death row prisoners in jails across India, the highest number since 2000.

In 2024, of the 139 death sentences awarded by trial courts, 87 (62%) were imposed in murder cases and 35 (25%) in cases of murder involving sexual offences. This is a reversal from the previous year, when more death sentences were imposed in cases of murder involving sexual offences (59) than in simple murder cases (40).

In 2023, the trial courts had awarded 122 death sentences.

“While trial court death sentences for sexual offences saw a noticeable decrease since 2019, High Court confirmations and commutations (where death sentences were reduced to life imprisonment without the possibility of remission), involved sexual offences,” the report stated.
High Courts across the country — in Haryana, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Punjab, and Telangana — confirmed the death sentences of 9 convicts.

The total number of death row prisoners (564 in 2024) has risen every year since 2019, when there were 378 inmates on death row. In 2024, 17 women were on death row.

The report attributes the high number of death row convicts to a trend of “high imposition of death sentences at trial courts, and the low rates of death penalty appeal disposals at High Courts”. The highest number of death sentences were passed in Uttar Pradesh at 34, followed by Kerala at 20 and West Bengal at 18.

It also found that in 90.5% of the 139 death sentences awarded by the trial courts in 2024, “no information about the accused (including reports on their psychiatric evaluations, jail conduct and life circumstances) was sought or relied upon when imposing the death penalty”. The SC in Manoj v. State of Madhya Pradesh (2022) had ruled that courts must consider this information in death penalty cases.

Under Section 366 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973, and Section 407 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, death sentence proceedings must be forwarded to the High Court for confirmation before they can be executed. In 2024, High Courts decided 87 cases whereas trial courts imposed 139 death penalties.

High Courts confirmed the death sentences of 9 convicts, the highest since 2019 (26). Of the 9 confirmations, 5 were in cases of murder involving sexual offence, 3 in simple murder and one in a case of kidnapping with murder.

In High Court cases as well, the report states that the “death penalty appeals were disposed of without seeking information about the accused including mitigation reports, jail conduct reports and psychiatric evaluations”. Aside from confirmations, the High Courts commuted the sentence of 79 convicts, acquitted 49, and sent the case of one convict back to the trial court in 2024.