How the Supreme Court Shaped Due Process in Death Penalty Cases

A Day Against the Death Penalty offered an opportune moment to look back at how the Supreme Court’s safeguards in enforcing the death penalty have fared over the past four decades. | Photo credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

The Day Against the Death Penalty, held on October 10, offered an opportune moment to look back at how the Supreme Court’s 1980 safeguards, which it established when it upheld the death penalty, have fared over the past four decades.

In Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab (1980), a Constitution Bench upheld the death penalty but laid down specific conditions in the form of guidelines for the exercise of judicial discretion. Under the legislative scheme of Section 354(3) of the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms Act, now Section 393(3) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) Act, 2023, life imprisonment was to be the norm and the death penalty could only be imposed on “special grounds”. Courts were to consider the circumstances of the offense alongside those of the accused and only impose death if life imprisonment was “undoubtedly excluded”.

Published – 04 Nov 2026 07:30 IST