Higher courts are overturning an increasing number of death and murder convictions

A crisis of credibility faces the Indian judiciary. Increasingly, death sentences and life terms awarded by lower courts in murder cases are getting reversed in appeals by the higher courts for reasons of error, subjectivity, or sentiment. Is there a case to recommend a course-correction exercise for the judges? A crime-control approach can sometimes have a subjective influence on the application of law. Take the latest case of the Allahabad High Court acquitting a murder accused by setting aside the death penalty awarded to him by a lower court. The High Court rejected the reference made to it to confirm the death penalty and acquitted the accused. The court’s observation is startling: “The evidence….does not have a ring of truth. The story of prosecution and the evidence led to prove the same is not worthy of credence… The evidence is not such as to raise the confidence of the court….” It is an indictment of the entire process undertaken by the lower court. Imagine the trauma of the accused who must have suffered unimaginable mental anguish when he was sentenced to death. What can, or who will, compensate him for the wrong? What is the guarantee that the errors will not be repeated? Is there a feedback mechanism in the judiciary that helps overcome such fundamental problems? Chief Justice NV Ramana was himself part of a Supreme Court bench that reversed a Section 302 order last May.

Barely a fortnight after taking the oath of office, Justice Ramana and two other judges set aside a judgment of the High Court in a murder case. A lower court had acquitted the accused in the case but in appeal before the High Court, the acquittal was set aside and the accused were sentenced to life imprisonment. Setting aside the life term order, the SC bench noted that the proof submitted was “too thin a piece of evidence to convict someone under Section 302 of the Code…The first Court of facts on appreciation of evidence had acquitted the appellant. We do not find any major lacuna in its reasoning which would have warranted interference by the Appeal Court for reversing such finding into that of guilt”. Justice Ramana was part of another bench to give almost a similar ruling in another life sentence case. Project 39A, which fights for fair justice, said in a 2016 report that nearly a third of 1700 death sentences awarded by trial courts in 15 years till 2015 were eventually acquitted while 65.3% of sentences were commuted to life. Only 4.9% of the sentences were confirmed. Of the 102 death sentences awarded in 2019, the Supreme Court that year confirmed only six death sentences. There should be a similar statistical analysis of the High Courts as well. It means most death sentence cases do not meet the high threshold set by judicial standards. The reasons for such dissonance need probing. A wrong conviction is worse than a wrong acquittal.