Why hanging cannot become a badge of judicial courage

Between April 6 and September 7, 2026, Additional District and Sessions Judge Ravi Kumar Diwakar sentenced 23 people to death in Muzaffarnagar. He had imposed death sentences on 22 people in 10 cases before the latest order; the sentence imposed on Mohd. Nadeem on September 7 raised the total to 23 people across 11 cases. This concentration of capital sentences demands scrutiny because the latest order equates judicial fearlessness with choosing the death sentence.The latest case concerned the 2018 killing of Nadeem’s wife, Shahzadi, who suffered 98 per cent burns when, according to the court’s findings, he poured kerosene on her and set her ablaze. Her dying declaration described the assault and burning but did not mention a dowry demand. The court held the dowry-related offences unproved, convicted Nadeem of murder, and treated the killing’s brutality and the breach of marital trust as aggravating circumstances. The Allahabad High Court must independently examine both the conviction and sentence.In the order, Diwakar wrote that he “would rather die, but would not like to be called a coward judge”. He referred to alleged threats from criminals and to the administrative recall of 97 murder cases from his court, and said that fear of mafias and strongmen would destroy public faith in an impartial judiciary.Any threat to a judge attacks the administration of justice, so Diwakar’s allegations require independent inquiry and adequate protection, while the unexplained recall of so many cases calls for transparency. These issues must remain separate from sentencing because neither a threat nor a judge’s desire to prove fearlessness can justify harsher punishment for a particular prisoner. Capital punishment is a power of the state, not a measure of the judge’s valour.A Sessions Court’s death sentence cannot be executed unless the High Court confirms it. In this mandatory “death reference”, the High Court reviews guilt and punishment and may confirm death, impose another lawful sentence, acquit the prisoner, or order a retrial. Sections 366 to 371 of the old Code of Criminal Procedure contain this process, which Sections 407 to 412 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita carry forward. None of Diwakar’s preceding 22 death sentences had then been confirmed. Review is vital, but the trial sentence still places a person on death row and risks making an exceptional punishment appear routine.The governing rule comes from the Supreme Court’s 1980 decision in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab. Life imprisonment is the norm and death the exception, reserved for the “rarest of rare” case in which the alternative of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed. An offence does not become death-worthy merely because its facts are horrifying; the court must consider the circumstances of both the crime and the offender.In Manoj v. The State of Madhya Pradesh in 2022, the Supreme Court required the State to provide a psychiatric and psychological evaluation, relevant details of the prisoner’s life and antecedents, and a report on conduct in prison. The accused must also be allowed to present mitigating evidence, which means facts that may justify a lesser sentence. The state bears responsibility for producing material to show that the prisoner is beyond reform or rehabilitation; brutality alone cannot establish that conclusion.These safeguards make reformative jurisprudence concrete: they neither excuse the offence nor discount the victim’s suffering, but require punishment to rest on evidence about the person and the crime.Diwakar’s language reverses that discipline by making a life sentence resemble retreat and death resemble resolve. The legal test asks whether life imprisonment has been foreclosed, not whether the judge will appear brave. Judicial independence requires resistance both to a powerful accused and to public anger, sensational facts, or concern for one’s reputation. In a capital case, judicial courage lies in imposing only the punishment that law and evidence justify, even when restraint is unpopular.An ordinary life sentence lasts for the prisoner’s natural life unless a competent executive authority lawfully remits or commutes it. Remission shortens the time actually served without changing the sentence and never guarantees release after 14 years. That figure is only a statutory floor for specified cases, not the duration of life imprisonment. Section 433A of the old CrPC bars release through ordinary remission before 14 years of actual imprisonment when life is imposed for an offence that also carries death, or when death is commuted to life. Section 475 of the BNSS carries forward the rule, and release after the minimum still depends on an executive remission or commutation decision.

Additional District and Sessions Judge Ravi Kumar Diwakar had imposed death sentences on 22 people in 10 cases before the latest order. | Photo Credit: The Hindu In Swamy Shraddananda (2) v. State of Karnataka in 2008, the Supreme Court created a special category for the few cases in which death would be excessive, but life with ordinary remission would be grossly inadequate. Such a sentence may require 20, 30, or 40 years of actual custody, or the remainder of natural life, without statutory remission. The constitutional clemency powers of the President and Governors nevertheless remain intact.A 3:2 Constitution Bench majority in Union of India v. V. Sriharan upheld this category in 2015 but confined it to High Courts and the Supreme Court. A Sessions Court may impose ordinary life imprisonment or death, but cannot require a remission-free minimum term exceeding 14 years or exclude statutory remission for the prisoner’s natural life. This restriction denies trial judges the calibrated option available to appellate courts.That restriction shaped the Sattankulam custodial-murder verdict, in which a Madurai trial court on April 6, 2026, sentenced nine suspended policemen to death for the 2020 killings of P. Jayaraj and his son J. Bennix. Judge G. Muthukumaran believed an ordinary life sentence could permit release after 14 years, while Sriharan barred the remission-free term he considered proportionate.This sentencing gap is real, but it does not leave a trial judge legally compelled to choose death whenever an ordinary life sentence appears inadequate. Bachan Singh still requires a life sentence unless the state proves that alternative to be unquestionably foreclosed. If the trial court nevertheless imposes death, the High Court may substitute the special-category sentence during the mandatory reference. Diwakar cannot turn the Supreme Court’s limit on his jurisdiction into proof of personal courage.The national warning in the numbersThe Square Circle Clinic’s ten-year report records 1,310 death sentences on 1,279 people across 822 cases from 2016 through 2025. The annual series is uneven rather than steadily rising: it fell to 76 people in 2020, peaked at 166 in 2022, and stood at 141 in 2024 and 128 in 2025. The year-end death-row population nevertheless reached 574 in 2025, the decade’s highest.The appellate outcomes show how rarely those trial-court death sentences survive unchanged. High Courts disposed of 842 of the Sessions Court death sentences but confirmed only 70, or 8.31 per cent; the Supreme Court decided 37 of those 70 and upheld none. The figures do not prove bad faith in every reversed case, but an irreversible punishment and such a low confirmation rate demand caution rather than pride in a record of severity.The procedural findings are equally troubling: of the 94 cases in which Sessions Courts imposed death in 2025, 83 judgments were available for assessment under Manoj, and 79 of them, or 95.18 per cent, failed its sentencing requirements. A court cannot reasonably find reform improbable without the information needed to examine it. The national data reveal an institutional problem in capital sentencing, not a contest over which judge appears toughest.Diwakar’s orders require full legal scrutiny, while his allegations of threats and interference must be examined separately. The Supreme Court should reconsider the asymmetry created by Sriharan, and Parliament should consider whether trial courts need a carefully defined intermediate sentence, subject to appellate safeguards and genuine periodic review. A whole-life sentence excluding statutory remission is itself extreme and should remain exceptional.Even without reform, a judge demonstrates independence by excluding fear, anger, applause, and personal reputation from sentencing. Choosing life when the law requires it shows judicial strength; turning the gallows into a badge of courage makes punishment about the judge when it must remain about the law, evidence, and the possibility of human change.V. Venkatesan is a Contributing Editor at Supreme Court Observer. The views are his own.Also Read | A case against the death penaltyAlso Read | Two murder verdicts challenge India’s death penalty standards