Death Sentence: Last year, trial courts across the country have awarded death sentence to 165 people. This figure for the year 2022 has been the highest in the last two decades. Earlier in the year 2021, 146 people were sentenced to death. It is shocking that every third person who gets death sentence is related to sexual crimes.
From the year 2015 to 2022, the number of people sentenced to death has increased by 40 percent. According to the report ‘The Death Penalty in India: Annual Statistics 2022’, the increase in the number of death sentences awarded by lower courts and the delay in hearing such cases in higher appellate courts has been cited as the reason for this increase.
38 people get death sentence in 2008 serial blast case
According to the report ‘Death sentence in India: Annual statistics 2022’, in February last year, Ahmedabad court sentenced 38 prisoners to death in the 2008 serial blasts case. This case has contributed the most in increasing the number of death sentences in 2022. In 2016, the number of prisoners sentenced to death for sexual offenses was 27. This was 17.6 per cent of the total 153 cases of sexual offences. At the same time, in 2022, 52 prisoners of 165 cases of sexual offenses were sentenced to death. Which is 31.5 percent of the total cases.
Only 77 people were hanged in 2020
According to the news of Times of India, Professor of Law and who issued the report, Anoop Sundernath said that the increased figures indicate the increasing trend of hanging in trial courts. He said that during the Corona epidemic in 2020, only 77 prisoners were hanged. After which the practice of giving death sentence in the trial court has increased.
The Supreme Court had issued a guideline on the death sentence
Last year, the Supreme Court had issued a guideline regarding the award of death sentence by the trial court and the High Court. The Supreme Court had said that before awarding the death sentence, the trial court should see the circumstances under which the crime took place and what is the background of the criminal.
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