Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 73
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Code Context


        trigger_error($message, E_USER_DEPRECATED);

    }
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 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php.'
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deprecationWarning - CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311
Cake\Http\ServerRequest::offsetGet() - CORE/src/Http/ServerRequest.php, line 2421
App\Controller\ArtileDetailController::printArticle() - APP/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line 73
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Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 120
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Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
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Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
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Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51
Cake\Http\Server::run() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 98

Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 74
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Code Context


        trigger_error($message, E_USER_DEPRECATED);

    }
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 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php.'
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deprecationWarning - CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311
Cake\Http\ServerRequest::offsetGet() - CORE/src/Http/ServerRequest.php, line 2421
App\Controller\ArtileDetailController::printArticle() - APP/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line 74
Cake\Controller\Controller::invokeAction() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 610
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 120
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51
Cake\Http\Server::run() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 98

Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Code Context
            if (Configure::read('debug')) {

                trigger_error($message, E_USER_WARNING);

            } else {
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-The Hindu
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&lt;em&gt;Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused&lt;/em&gt;
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The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14 death-row convicts including Afzal Guru, whose mercy petitions have been turned over to it by the President for fresh advice.
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The one mercy petition presently pending with President Pranab Mukherjee, after the receipt of advice from Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, also carries the taint of flawed death sentence by the Supreme Court.
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The Supreme Court&amp;rsquo;s five-judge Constitution Bench judgment in Bachan Singh v State of Punjab (1980) is the source of contemporary death penalty jurisprudence in India. It limited the death penalty to the rarest of rare crimes, and laid down the principle that the courts must impose the death sentence on a convict only if the alternative sentence of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed. For achieving these twin objectives, the court held that judges must consider the aggravating features of the crime, as well as the mitigating factors of the criminal. However, the application of its principles by the courts to various cases has been very uneven and inconsistent.
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The Sangeet judgement has reaffirmed that Bachan is the correct precedent for awarding death penalty. The relevant findings of the two-Judge Bench comprising Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Madan B. Lokur in Sangeet, to paraphrase, are:
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1. The reliance on Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, delivered by a three-Judge Bench in 1983, as a valid legal precedent by many subsequent Benches to justify death sentences is flawed. Machhi Singh sought to compare aggravating circumstances pertaining to a crime with the mitigating circumstances pertaining to a criminal. These are completely distinct and different elements and cannot be compared with one another. A balance sheet cannot be drawn up of two distinct and different constituents of an incident. Bachan Singh resolutely refrained from balancing these elements, because it leads to arbitrary decisions by a Judge.
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2. Machhi Singh sought to standardize crimes into five absolute categories, in order to identify the rarest of rare crime deserving death sentence. These five categories are manner of commission of murder, motive for commission of murder, anti-social or socially abhorrent nature of the crime, magnitude of crime and personality of victim of murder. These categories enlarge the scope for imposing death penalty that was greatly restricted by Bachan Singh.
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3. Despite Bachan Singh, primacy still seems to be given to the nature of the crime. The circumstances of the criminal, referred to in Bachan Singh, appear to have taken a bit of a back seat in the sentencing process.
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The Hindu has scrutinized each Supreme Court judgment in the 15 cases and found that applying Sangeet the executive could recommend commuting the death sentences in all the cases.&amp;nbsp;
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-The Hindu





Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused





The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;-The Hindu&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14 death-row convicts including Afzal Guru, whose mercy petitions have been turned over to it by the President for fresh advice.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The one mercy petition presently pending with President Pranab Mukherjee, after the receipt of advice from Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, also carries the taint of flawed death sentence by the Supreme Court.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The Supreme Court&amp;rsquo;s five-judge Constitution Bench judgment in Bachan Singh v State of Punjab (1980) is the source of contemporary death penalty jurisprudence in India. It limited the death penalty to the rarest of rare crimes, and laid down the principle that the courts must impose the death sentence on a convict only if the alternative sentence of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed. For achieving these twin objectives, the court held that judges must consider the aggravating features of the crime, as well as the mitigating factors of the criminal. However, the application of its principles by the courts to various cases has been very uneven and inconsistent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The Sangeet judgement has reaffirmed that Bachan is the correct precedent for awarding death penalty. The relevant findings of the two-Judge Bench comprising Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Madan B. Lokur in Sangeet, to paraphrase, are:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;1. The reliance on Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, delivered by a three-Judge Bench in 1983, as a valid legal precedent by many subsequent Benches to justify death sentences is flawed. Machhi Singh sought to compare aggravating circumstances pertaining to a crime with the mitigating circumstances pertaining to a criminal. These are completely distinct and different elements and cannot be compared with one another. A balance sheet cannot be drawn up of two distinct and different constituents of an incident. Bachan Singh resolutely refrained from balancing these elements, because it leads to arbitrary decisions by a Judge.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;2. Machhi Singh sought to standardize crimes into five absolute categories, in order to identify the rarest of rare crime deserving death sentence. These five categories are manner of commission of murder, motive for commission of murder, anti-social or socially abhorrent nature of the crime, magnitude of crime and personality of victim of murder. These categories enlarge the scope for imposing death penalty that was greatly restricted by Bachan Singh.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;3. Despite Bachan Singh, primacy still seems to be given to the nature of the crime. The circumstances of the criminal, referred to in Bachan Singh, appear to have taken a bit of a back seat in the sentencing process.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The Hindu has scrutinized each Supreme Court judgment in the 15 cases and found that applying Sangeet the executive could recommend commuting the death sentences in all the cases.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;&#039;,
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&lt;em&gt;Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused&lt;/em&gt;
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&lt;br /&gt;
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The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14 death-row convicts including Afzal Guru, whose mercy petitions have been turned over to it by the President for fresh advice.
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&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;
The one mercy petition presently pending with President Pranab Mukherjee, after the receipt of advice from Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, also carries the taint of flawed death sentence by the Supreme Court.
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;
The Supreme Court&amp;rsquo;s five-judge Constitution Bench judgment in Bachan Singh v State of Punjab (1980) is the source of contemporary death penalty jurisprudence in India. It limited the death penalty to the rarest of rare crimes, and laid down the principle that the courts must impose the death sentence on a convict only if the alternative sentence of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed. For achieving these twin objectives, the court held that judges must consider the aggravating features of the crime, as well as the mitigating factors of the criminal. However, the application of its principles by the courts to various cases has been very uneven and inconsistent.
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&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;
The Sangeet judgement has reaffirmed that Bachan is the correct precedent for awarding death penalty. The relevant findings of the two-Judge Bench comprising Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Madan B. Lokur in Sangeet, to paraphrase, are:
&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;br /&gt;
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1. The reliance on Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, delivered by a three-Judge Bench in 1983, as a valid legal precedent by many subsequent Benches to justify death sentences is flawed. Machhi Singh sought to compare aggravating circumstances pertaining to a crime with the mitigating circumstances pertaining to a criminal. These are completely distinct and different elements and cannot be compared with one another. A balance sheet cannot be drawn up of two distinct and different constituents of an incident. Bachan Singh resolutely refrained from balancing these elements, because it leads to arbitrary decisions by a Judge.
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&lt;br /&gt;
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2. Machhi Singh sought to standardize crimes into five absolute categories, in order to identify the rarest of rare crime deserving death sentence. These five categories are manner of commission of murder, motive for commission of murder, anti-social or socially abhorrent nature of the crime, magnitude of crime and personality of victim of murder. These categories enlarge the scope for imposing death penalty that was greatly restricted by Bachan Singh.
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&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;
3. Despite Bachan Singh, primacy still seems to be given to the nature of the crime. The circumstances of the criminal, referred to in Bachan Singh, appear to have taken a bit of a back seat in the sentencing process.
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;
The Hindu has scrutinized each Supreme Court judgment in the 15 cases and found that applying Sangeet the executive could recommend commuting the death sentences in all the cases.&amp;nbsp;
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-The Hindu





Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused





The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;-The Hindu&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14 death-row convicts including Afzal Guru, whose mercy petitions have been turned over to it by the President for fresh advice.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The one mercy petition presently pending with President Pranab Mukherjee, after the receipt of advice from Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, also carries the taint of flawed death sentence by the Supreme Court.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The Supreme Court&amp;rsquo;s five-judge Constitution Bench judgment in Bachan Singh v State of Punjab (1980) is the source of contemporary death penalty jurisprudence in India. It limited the death penalty to the rarest of rare crimes, and laid down the principle that the courts must impose the death sentence on a convict only if the alternative sentence of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed. For achieving these twin objectives, the court held that judges must consider the aggravating features of the crime, as well as the mitigating factors of the criminal. However, the application of its principles by the courts to various cases has been very uneven and inconsistent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The Sangeet judgement has reaffirmed that Bachan is the correct precedent for awarding death penalty. The relevant findings of the two-Judge Bench comprising Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Madan B. Lokur in Sangeet, to paraphrase, are:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;1. The reliance on Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, delivered by a three-Judge Bench in 1983, as a valid legal precedent by many subsequent Benches to justify death sentences is flawed. Machhi Singh sought to compare aggravating circumstances pertaining to a crime with the mitigating circumstances pertaining to a criminal. These are completely distinct and different elements and cannot be compared with one another. A balance sheet cannot be drawn up of two distinct and different constituents of an incident. Bachan Singh resolutely refrained from balancing these elements, because it leads to arbitrary decisions by a Judge.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;2. Machhi Singh sought to standardize crimes into five absolute categories, in order to identify the rarest of rare crime deserving death sentence. These five categories are manner of commission of murder, motive for commission of murder, anti-social or socially abhorrent nature of the crime, magnitude of crime and personality of victim of murder. These categories enlarge the scope for imposing death penalty that was greatly restricted by Bachan Singh.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;3. Despite Bachan Singh, primacy still seems to be given to the nature of the crime. The circumstances of the criminal, referred to in Bachan Singh, appear to have taken a bit of a back seat in the sentencing process.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The Hindu has scrutinized each Supreme Court judgment in the 15 cases and found that applying Sangeet the executive could recommend commuting the death sentences in all the cases.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;&#039;
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-The Hindu





Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused





The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14..."/>
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                <strong>A ray of hope for Afzal, other death-row prisoners -V Venkatesan</strong></h1>
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                <div style="text-align: justify">-The Hindu</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify"><em>Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused</em></div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14 death-row convicts including Afzal Guru, whose mercy petitions have been turned over to it by the President for fresh advice.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The one mercy petition presently pending with President Pranab Mukherjee, after the receipt of advice from Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, also carries the taint of flawed death sentence by the Supreme Court.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The Supreme Court&rsquo;s five-judge Constitution Bench judgment in Bachan Singh v State of Punjab (1980) is the source of contemporary death penalty jurisprudence in India. It limited the death penalty to the rarest of rare crimes, and laid down the principle that the courts must impose the death sentence on a convict only if the alternative sentence of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed. For achieving these twin objectives, the court held that judges must consider the aggravating features of the crime, as well as the mitigating factors of the criminal. However, the application of its principles by the courts to various cases has been very uneven and inconsistent.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The Sangeet judgement has reaffirmed that Bachan is the correct precedent for awarding death penalty. The relevant findings of the two-Judge Bench comprising Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Madan B. Lokur in Sangeet, to paraphrase, are:</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">1. The reliance on Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, delivered by a three-Judge Bench in 1983, as a valid legal precedent by many subsequent Benches to justify death sentences is flawed. Machhi Singh sought to compare aggravating circumstances pertaining to a crime with the mitigating circumstances pertaining to a criminal. These are completely distinct and different elements and cannot be compared with one another. A balance sheet cannot be drawn up of two distinct and different constituents of an incident. Bachan Singh resolutely refrained from balancing these elements, because it leads to arbitrary decisions by a Judge.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">2. Machhi Singh sought to standardize crimes into five absolute categories, in order to identify the rarest of rare crime deserving death sentence. These five categories are manner of commission of murder, motive for commission of murder, anti-social or socially abhorrent nature of the crime, magnitude of crime and personality of victim of murder. These categories enlarge the scope for imposing death penalty that was greatly restricted by Bachan Singh.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">3. Despite Bachan Singh, primacy still seems to be given to the nature of the crime. The circumstances of the criminal, referred to in Bachan Singh, appear to have taken a bit of a back seat in the sentencing process.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The Hindu has scrutinized each Supreme Court judgment in the 15 cases and found that applying Sangeet the executive could recommend commuting the death sentences in all the cases.&nbsp;</div>               </font>
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-The Hindu
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&lt;em&gt;Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused&lt;/em&gt;
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The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14 death-row convicts including Afzal Guru, whose mercy petitions have been turned over to it by the President for fresh advice.
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The one mercy petition presently pending with President Pranab Mukherjee, after the receipt of advice from Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, also carries the taint of flawed death sentence by the Supreme Court.
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The Supreme Court&amp;rsquo;s five-judge Constitution Bench judgment in Bachan Singh v State of Punjab (1980) is the source of contemporary death penalty jurisprudence in India. It limited the death penalty to the rarest of rare crimes, and laid down the principle that the courts must impose the death sentence on a convict only if the alternative sentence of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed. For achieving these twin objectives, the court held that judges must consider the aggravating features of the crime, as well as the mitigating factors of the criminal. However, the application of its principles by the courts to various cases has been very uneven and inconsistent.
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The Sangeet judgement has reaffirmed that Bachan is the correct precedent for awarding death penalty. The relevant findings of the two-Judge Bench comprising Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Madan B. Lokur in Sangeet, to paraphrase, are:
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1. The reliance on Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, delivered by a three-Judge Bench in 1983, as a valid legal precedent by many subsequent Benches to justify death sentences is flawed. Machhi Singh sought to compare aggravating circumstances pertaining to a crime with the mitigating circumstances pertaining to a criminal. These are completely distinct and different elements and cannot be compared with one another. A balance sheet cannot be drawn up of two distinct and different constituents of an incident. Bachan Singh resolutely refrained from balancing these elements, because it leads to arbitrary decisions by a Judge.
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2. Machhi Singh sought to standardize crimes into five absolute categories, in order to identify the rarest of rare crime deserving death sentence. These five categories are manner of commission of murder, motive for commission of murder, anti-social or socially abhorrent nature of the crime, magnitude of crime and personality of victim of murder. These categories enlarge the scope for imposing death penalty that was greatly restricted by Bachan Singh.
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The Hindu has scrutinized each Supreme Court judgment in the 15 cases and found that applying Sangeet the executive could recommend commuting the death sentences in all the cases.&amp;nbsp;
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Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused





The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;-The Hindu&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14 death-row convicts including Afzal Guru, whose mercy petitions have been turned over to it by the President for fresh advice.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The one mercy petition presently pending with President Pranab Mukherjee, after the receipt of advice from Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, also carries the taint of flawed death sentence by the Supreme Court.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The Supreme Court&amp;rsquo;s five-judge Constitution Bench judgment in Bachan Singh v State of Punjab (1980) is the source of contemporary death penalty jurisprudence in India. It limited the death penalty to the rarest of rare crimes, and laid down the principle that the courts must impose the death sentence on a convict only if the alternative sentence of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed. For achieving these twin objectives, the court held that judges must consider the aggravating features of the crime, as well as the mitigating factors of the criminal. However, the application of its principles by the courts to various cases has been very uneven and inconsistent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The Sangeet judgement has reaffirmed that Bachan is the correct precedent for awarding death penalty. The relevant findings of the two-Judge Bench comprising Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Madan B. Lokur in Sangeet, to paraphrase, are:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;1. The reliance on Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, delivered by a three-Judge Bench in 1983, as a valid legal precedent by many subsequent Benches to justify death sentences is flawed. Machhi Singh sought to compare aggravating circumstances pertaining to a crime with the mitigating circumstances pertaining to a criminal. These are completely distinct and different elements and cannot be compared with one another. A balance sheet cannot be drawn up of two distinct and different constituents of an incident. Bachan Singh resolutely refrained from balancing these elements, because it leads to arbitrary decisions by a Judge.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;2. Machhi Singh sought to standardize crimes into five absolute categories, in order to identify the rarest of rare crime deserving death sentence. These five categories are manner of commission of murder, motive for commission of murder, anti-social or socially abhorrent nature of the crime, magnitude of crime and personality of victim of murder. These categories enlarge the scope for imposing death penalty that was greatly restricted by Bachan Singh.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;3. Despite Bachan Singh, primacy still seems to be given to the nature of the crime. The circumstances of the criminal, referred to in Bachan Singh, appear to have taken a bit of a back seat in the sentencing process.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The Hindu has scrutinized each Supreme Court judgment in the 15 cases and found that applying Sangeet the executive could recommend commuting the death sentences in all the cases.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;&#039;,
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-The Hindu
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&lt;em&gt;Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused&lt;/em&gt;
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The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14 death-row convicts including Afzal Guru, whose mercy petitions have been turned over to it by the President for fresh advice.
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The one mercy petition presently pending with President Pranab Mukherjee, after the receipt of advice from Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, also carries the taint of flawed death sentence by the Supreme Court.
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The Supreme Court&amp;rsquo;s five-judge Constitution Bench judgment in Bachan Singh v State of Punjab (1980) is the source of contemporary death penalty jurisprudence in India. It limited the death penalty to the rarest of rare crimes, and laid down the principle that the courts must impose the death sentence on a convict only if the alternative sentence of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed. For achieving these twin objectives, the court held that judges must consider the aggravating features of the crime, as well as the mitigating factors of the criminal. However, the application of its principles by the courts to various cases has been very uneven and inconsistent.
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The Sangeet judgement has reaffirmed that Bachan is the correct precedent for awarding death penalty. The relevant findings of the two-Judge Bench comprising Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Madan B. Lokur in Sangeet, to paraphrase, are:
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1. The reliance on Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, delivered by a three-Judge Bench in 1983, as a valid legal precedent by many subsequent Benches to justify death sentences is flawed. Machhi Singh sought to compare aggravating circumstances pertaining to a crime with the mitigating circumstances pertaining to a criminal. These are completely distinct and different elements and cannot be compared with one another. A balance sheet cannot be drawn up of two distinct and different constituents of an incident. Bachan Singh resolutely refrained from balancing these elements, because it leads to arbitrary decisions by a Judge.
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2. Machhi Singh sought to standardize crimes into five absolute categories, in order to identify the rarest of rare crime deserving death sentence. These five categories are manner of commission of murder, motive for commission of murder, anti-social or socially abhorrent nature of the crime, magnitude of crime and personality of victim of murder. These categories enlarge the scope for imposing death penalty that was greatly restricted by Bachan Singh.
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3. Despite Bachan Singh, primacy still seems to be given to the nature of the crime. The circumstances of the criminal, referred to in Bachan Singh, appear to have taken a bit of a back seat in the sentencing process.
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The Hindu has scrutinized each Supreme Court judgment in the 15 cases and found that applying Sangeet the executive could recommend commuting the death sentences in all the cases.&amp;nbsp;
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-The Hindu





Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused





The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;-The Hindu&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14 death-row convicts including Afzal Guru, whose mercy petitions have been turned over to it by the President for fresh advice.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The one mercy petition presently pending with President Pranab Mukherjee, after the receipt of advice from Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, also carries the taint of flawed death sentence by the Supreme Court.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The Supreme Court&amp;rsquo;s five-judge Constitution Bench judgment in Bachan Singh v State of Punjab (1980) is the source of contemporary death penalty jurisprudence in India. It limited the death penalty to the rarest of rare crimes, and laid down the principle that the courts must impose the death sentence on a convict only if the alternative sentence of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed. For achieving these twin objectives, the court held that judges must consider the aggravating features of the crime, as well as the mitigating factors of the criminal. However, the application of its principles by the courts to various cases has been very uneven and inconsistent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The Sangeet judgement has reaffirmed that Bachan is the correct precedent for awarding death penalty. The relevant findings of the two-Judge Bench comprising Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Madan B. Lokur in Sangeet, to paraphrase, are:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;1. The reliance on Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, delivered by a three-Judge Bench in 1983, as a valid legal precedent by many subsequent Benches to justify death sentences is flawed. Machhi Singh sought to compare aggravating circumstances pertaining to a crime with the mitigating circumstances pertaining to a criminal. These are completely distinct and different elements and cannot be compared with one another. A balance sheet cannot be drawn up of two distinct and different constituents of an incident. Bachan Singh resolutely refrained from balancing these elements, because it leads to arbitrary decisions by a Judge.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;2. Machhi Singh sought to standardize crimes into five absolute categories, in order to identify the rarest of rare crime deserving death sentence. These five categories are manner of commission of murder, motive for commission of murder, anti-social or socially abhorrent nature of the crime, magnitude of crime and personality of victim of murder. These categories enlarge the scope for imposing death penalty that was greatly restricted by Bachan Singh.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;3. Despite Bachan Singh, primacy still seems to be given to the nature of the crime. The circumstances of the criminal, referred to in Bachan Singh, appear to have taken a bit of a back seat in the sentencing process.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The Hindu has scrutinized each Supreme Court judgment in the 15 cases and found that applying Sangeet the executive could recommend commuting the death sentences in all the cases.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;&#039;
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-The Hindu





Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused





The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14..."/>
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                <strong>A ray of hope for Afzal, other death-row prisoners -V Venkatesan</strong></h1>
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                <div style="text-align: justify">-The Hindu</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify"><em>Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused</em></div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14 death-row convicts including Afzal Guru, whose mercy petitions have been turned over to it by the President for fresh advice.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The one mercy petition presently pending with President Pranab Mukherjee, after the receipt of advice from Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, also carries the taint of flawed death sentence by the Supreme Court.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The Supreme Court&rsquo;s five-judge Constitution Bench judgment in Bachan Singh v State of Punjab (1980) is the source of contemporary death penalty jurisprudence in India. It limited the death penalty to the rarest of rare crimes, and laid down the principle that the courts must impose the death sentence on a convict only if the alternative sentence of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed. For achieving these twin objectives, the court held that judges must consider the aggravating features of the crime, as well as the mitigating factors of the criminal. However, the application of its principles by the courts to various cases has been very uneven and inconsistent.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The Sangeet judgement has reaffirmed that Bachan is the correct precedent for awarding death penalty. The relevant findings of the two-Judge Bench comprising Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Madan B. Lokur in Sangeet, to paraphrase, are:</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">1. The reliance on Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, delivered by a three-Judge Bench in 1983, as a valid legal precedent by many subsequent Benches to justify death sentences is flawed. Machhi Singh sought to compare aggravating circumstances pertaining to a crime with the mitigating circumstances pertaining to a criminal. These are completely distinct and different elements and cannot be compared with one another. A balance sheet cannot be drawn up of two distinct and different constituents of an incident. Bachan Singh resolutely refrained from balancing these elements, because it leads to arbitrary decisions by a Judge.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">2. Machhi Singh sought to standardize crimes into five absolute categories, in order to identify the rarest of rare crime deserving death sentence. These five categories are manner of commission of murder, motive for commission of murder, anti-social or socially abhorrent nature of the crime, magnitude of crime and personality of victim of murder. These categories enlarge the scope for imposing death penalty that was greatly restricted by Bachan Singh.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">3. Despite Bachan Singh, primacy still seems to be given to the nature of the crime. The circumstances of the criminal, referred to in Bachan Singh, appear to have taken a bit of a back seat in the sentencing process.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The Hindu has scrutinized each Supreme Court judgment in the 15 cases and found that applying Sangeet the executive could recommend commuting the death sentences in all the cases.&nbsp;</div>               </font>
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		&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;A ray of hope for Afzal, other death-row prisoners -V Venkatesan&#039;,
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-The Hindu
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&lt;em&gt;Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused&lt;/em&gt;
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The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14 death-row convicts including Afzal Guru, whose mercy petitions have been turned over to it by the President for fresh advice.
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&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;
The one mercy petition presently pending with President Pranab Mukherjee, after the receipt of advice from Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, also carries the taint of flawed death sentence by the Supreme Court.
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&lt;br /&gt;
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The Supreme Court&amp;rsquo;s five-judge Constitution Bench judgment in Bachan Singh v State of Punjab (1980) is the source of contemporary death penalty jurisprudence in India. It limited the death penalty to the rarest of rare crimes, and laid down the principle that the courts must impose the death sentence on a convict only if the alternative sentence of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed. For achieving these twin objectives, the court held that judges must consider the aggravating features of the crime, as well as the mitigating factors of the criminal. However, the application of its principles by the courts to various cases has been very uneven and inconsistent.
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&lt;br /&gt;
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The Sangeet judgement has reaffirmed that Bachan is the correct precedent for awarding death penalty. The relevant findings of the two-Judge Bench comprising Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Madan B. Lokur in Sangeet, to paraphrase, are:
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1. The reliance on Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, delivered by a three-Judge Bench in 1983, as a valid legal precedent by many subsequent Benches to justify death sentences is flawed. Machhi Singh sought to compare aggravating circumstances pertaining to a crime with the mitigating circumstances pertaining to a criminal. These are completely distinct and different elements and cannot be compared with one another. A balance sheet cannot be drawn up of two distinct and different constituents of an incident. Bachan Singh resolutely refrained from balancing these elements, because it leads to arbitrary decisions by a Judge.
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2. Machhi Singh sought to standardize crimes into five absolute categories, in order to identify the rarest of rare crime deserving death sentence. These five categories are manner of commission of murder, motive for commission of murder, anti-social or socially abhorrent nature of the crime, magnitude of crime and personality of victim of murder. These categories enlarge the scope for imposing death penalty that was greatly restricted by Bachan Singh.
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3. Despite Bachan Singh, primacy still seems to be given to the nature of the crime. The circumstances of the criminal, referred to in Bachan Singh, appear to have taken a bit of a back seat in the sentencing process.
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The Hindu has scrutinized each Supreme Court judgment in the 15 cases and found that applying Sangeet the executive could recommend commuting the death sentences in all the cases.&amp;nbsp;
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-The Hindu





Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused





The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;-The Hindu&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14 death-row convicts including Afzal Guru, whose mercy petitions have been turned over to it by the President for fresh advice.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The one mercy petition presently pending with President Pranab Mukherjee, after the receipt of advice from Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, also carries the taint of flawed death sentence by the Supreme Court.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The Supreme Court&amp;rsquo;s five-judge Constitution Bench judgment in Bachan Singh v State of Punjab (1980) is the source of contemporary death penalty jurisprudence in India. It limited the death penalty to the rarest of rare crimes, and laid down the principle that the courts must impose the death sentence on a convict only if the alternative sentence of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed. For achieving these twin objectives, the court held that judges must consider the aggravating features of the crime, as well as the mitigating factors of the criminal. However, the application of its principles by the courts to various cases has been very uneven and inconsistent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The Sangeet judgement has reaffirmed that Bachan is the correct precedent for awarding death penalty. The relevant findings of the two-Judge Bench comprising Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Madan B. Lokur in Sangeet, to paraphrase, are:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;1. The reliance on Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, delivered by a three-Judge Bench in 1983, as a valid legal precedent by many subsequent Benches to justify death sentences is flawed. Machhi Singh sought to compare aggravating circumstances pertaining to a crime with the mitigating circumstances pertaining to a criminal. These are completely distinct and different elements and cannot be compared with one another. A balance sheet cannot be drawn up of two distinct and different constituents of an incident. Bachan Singh resolutely refrained from balancing these elements, because it leads to arbitrary decisions by a Judge.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;2. Machhi Singh sought to standardize crimes into five absolute categories, in order to identify the rarest of rare crime deserving death sentence. These five categories are manner of commission of murder, motive for commission of murder, anti-social or socially abhorrent nature of the crime, magnitude of crime and personality of victim of murder. These categories enlarge the scope for imposing death penalty that was greatly restricted by Bachan Singh.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;3. Despite Bachan Singh, primacy still seems to be given to the nature of the crime. The circumstances of the criminal, referred to in Bachan Singh, appear to have taken a bit of a back seat in the sentencing process.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The Hindu has scrutinized each Supreme Court judgment in the 15 cases and found that applying Sangeet the executive could recommend commuting the death sentences in all the cases.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;&#039;,
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-The Hindu
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&lt;br /&gt;
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&lt;em&gt;Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused&lt;/em&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
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The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14 death-row convicts including Afzal Guru, whose mercy petitions have been turned over to it by the President for fresh advice.
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;
The one mercy petition presently pending with President Pranab Mukherjee, after the receipt of advice from Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, also carries the taint of flawed death sentence by the Supreme Court.
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;
The Supreme Court&amp;rsquo;s five-judge Constitution Bench judgment in Bachan Singh v State of Punjab (1980) is the source of contemporary death penalty jurisprudence in India. It limited the death penalty to the rarest of rare crimes, and laid down the principle that the courts must impose the death sentence on a convict only if the alternative sentence of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed. For achieving these twin objectives, the court held that judges must consider the aggravating features of the crime, as well as the mitigating factors of the criminal. However, the application of its principles by the courts to various cases has been very uneven and inconsistent.
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;
The Sangeet judgement has reaffirmed that Bachan is the correct precedent for awarding death penalty. The relevant findings of the two-Judge Bench comprising Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Madan B. Lokur in Sangeet, to paraphrase, are:
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;
1. The reliance on Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, delivered by a three-Judge Bench in 1983, as a valid legal precedent by many subsequent Benches to justify death sentences is flawed. Machhi Singh sought to compare aggravating circumstances pertaining to a crime with the mitigating circumstances pertaining to a criminal. These are completely distinct and different elements and cannot be compared with one another. A balance sheet cannot be drawn up of two distinct and different constituents of an incident. Bachan Singh resolutely refrained from balancing these elements, because it leads to arbitrary decisions by a Judge.
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;
2. Machhi Singh sought to standardize crimes into five absolute categories, in order to identify the rarest of rare crime deserving death sentence. These five categories are manner of commission of murder, motive for commission of murder, anti-social or socially abhorrent nature of the crime, magnitude of crime and personality of victim of murder. These categories enlarge the scope for imposing death penalty that was greatly restricted by Bachan Singh.
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;
3. Despite Bachan Singh, primacy still seems to be given to the nature of the crime. The circumstances of the criminal, referred to in Bachan Singh, appear to have taken a bit of a back seat in the sentencing process.
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;
The Hindu has scrutinized each Supreme Court judgment in the 15 cases and found that applying Sangeet the executive could recommend commuting the death sentences in all the cases.&amp;nbsp;
&lt;/div&gt;&#039;,
	&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;The Hindu, 17 December, 2012, http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/a-ray-of-hope-for-afzal-other-deathrow-prisoners/article4207057.ece?homepage=true&#039;,
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-The Hindu





Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused





The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;-The Hindu&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14 death-row convicts including Afzal Guru, whose mercy petitions have been turned over to it by the President for fresh advice.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The one mercy petition presently pending with President Pranab Mukherjee, after the receipt of advice from Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, also carries the taint of flawed death sentence by the Supreme Court.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The Supreme Court&amp;rsquo;s five-judge Constitution Bench judgment in Bachan Singh v State of Punjab (1980) is the source of contemporary death penalty jurisprudence in India. It limited the death penalty to the rarest of rare crimes, and laid down the principle that the courts must impose the death sentence on a convict only if the alternative sentence of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed. For achieving these twin objectives, the court held that judges must consider the aggravating features of the crime, as well as the mitigating factors of the criminal. However, the application of its principles by the courts to various cases has been very uneven and inconsistent.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The Sangeet judgement has reaffirmed that Bachan is the correct precedent for awarding death penalty. The relevant findings of the two-Judge Bench comprising Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Madan B. Lokur in Sangeet, to paraphrase, are:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;1. The reliance on Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, delivered by a three-Judge Bench in 1983, as a valid legal precedent by many subsequent Benches to justify death sentences is flawed. Machhi Singh sought to compare aggravating circumstances pertaining to a crime with the mitigating circumstances pertaining to a criminal. These are completely distinct and different elements and cannot be compared with one another. A balance sheet cannot be drawn up of two distinct and different constituents of an incident. Bachan Singh resolutely refrained from balancing these elements, because it leads to arbitrary decisions by a Judge.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;2. Machhi Singh sought to standardize crimes into five absolute categories, in order to identify the rarest of rare crime deserving death sentence. These five categories are manner of commission of murder, motive for commission of murder, anti-social or socially abhorrent nature of the crime, magnitude of crime and personality of victim of murder. These categories enlarge the scope for imposing death penalty that was greatly restricted by Bachan Singh.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;3. Despite Bachan Singh, primacy still seems to be given to the nature of the crime. The circumstances of the criminal, referred to in Bachan Singh, appear to have taken a bit of a back seat in the sentencing process.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;text-align: justify&quot;&gt;The Hindu has scrutinized each Supreme Court judgment in the 15 cases and found that applying Sangeet the executive could recommend commuting the death sentences in all the cases.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;&#039;
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-The Hindu





Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused





The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14..."/>
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                <strong>A ray of hope for Afzal, other death-row prisoners -V Venkatesan</strong></h1>
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                <div style="text-align: justify">-The Hindu</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify"><em>Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused</em></div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14 death-row convicts including Afzal Guru, whose mercy petitions have been turned over to it by the President for fresh advice.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The one mercy petition presently pending with President Pranab Mukherjee, after the receipt of advice from Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, also carries the taint of flawed death sentence by the Supreme Court.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The Supreme Court&rsquo;s five-judge Constitution Bench judgment in Bachan Singh v State of Punjab (1980) is the source of contemporary death penalty jurisprudence in India. It limited the death penalty to the rarest of rare crimes, and laid down the principle that the courts must impose the death sentence on a convict only if the alternative sentence of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed. For achieving these twin objectives, the court held that judges must consider the aggravating features of the crime, as well as the mitigating factors of the criminal. However, the application of its principles by the courts to various cases has been very uneven and inconsistent.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The Sangeet judgement has reaffirmed that Bachan is the correct precedent for awarding death penalty. The relevant findings of the two-Judge Bench comprising Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Madan B. Lokur in Sangeet, to paraphrase, are:</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">1. The reliance on Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, delivered by a three-Judge Bench in 1983, as a valid legal precedent by many subsequent Benches to justify death sentences is flawed. Machhi Singh sought to compare aggravating circumstances pertaining to a crime with the mitigating circumstances pertaining to a criminal. These are completely distinct and different elements and cannot be compared with one another. A balance sheet cannot be drawn up of two distinct and different constituents of an incident. Bachan Singh resolutely refrained from balancing these elements, because it leads to arbitrary decisions by a Judge.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">2. Machhi Singh sought to standardize crimes into five absolute categories, in order to identify the rarest of rare crime deserving death sentence. These five categories are manner of commission of murder, motive for commission of murder, anti-social or socially abhorrent nature of the crime, magnitude of crime and personality of victim of murder. These categories enlarge the scope for imposing death penalty that was greatly restricted by Bachan Singh.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">3. Despite Bachan Singh, primacy still seems to be given to the nature of the crime. The circumstances of the criminal, referred to in Bachan Singh, appear to have taken a bit of a back seat in the sentencing process.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The Hindu has scrutinized each Supreme Court judgment in the 15 cases and found that applying Sangeet the executive could recommend commuting the death sentences in all the cases.&nbsp;</div>               </font>
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-The Hindu
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<em>Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused</em>
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The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14 death-row convicts including Afzal Guru, whose mercy petitions have been turned over to it by the President for fresh advice.
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The one mercy petition presently pending with President Pranab Mukherjee, after the receipt of advice from Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, also carries the taint of flawed death sentence by the Supreme Court.
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<div style="text-align: justify">
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The Sangeet judgement has reaffirmed that Bachan is the correct precedent for awarding death penalty. The relevant findings of the two-Judge Bench comprising Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Madan B. Lokur in Sangeet, to paraphrase, are:
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1. The reliance on Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, delivered by a three-Judge Bench in 1983, as a valid legal precedent by many subsequent Benches to justify death sentences is flawed. Machhi Singh sought to compare aggravating circumstances pertaining to a crime with the mitigating circumstances pertaining to a criminal. These are completely distinct and different elements and cannot be compared with one another. A balance sheet cannot be drawn up of two distinct and different constituents of an incident. Bachan Singh resolutely refrained from balancing these elements, because it leads to arbitrary decisions by a Judge.
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<br />
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2. Machhi Singh sought to standardize crimes into five absolute categories, in order to identify the rarest of rare crime deserving death sentence. These five categories are manner of commission of murder, motive for commission of murder, anti-social or socially abhorrent nature of the crime, magnitude of crime and personality of victim of murder. These categories enlarge the scope for imposing death penalty that was greatly restricted by Bachan Singh.
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3. Despite Bachan Singh, primacy still seems to be given to the nature of the crime. The circumstances of the criminal, referred to in Bachan Singh, appear to have taken a bit of a back seat in the sentencing process.
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The Hindu has scrutinized each Supreme Court judgment in the 15 cases and found that applying Sangeet the executive could recommend commuting the death sentences in all the cases.&nbsp;
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-The Hindu





Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused





The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14...',
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-The Hindu
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify">
<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify">
<em>Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused</em>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify">
<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify">
The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14 death-row convicts including Afzal Guru, whose mercy petitions have been turned over to it by the President for fresh advice.
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify">
<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify">
The one mercy petition presently pending with President Pranab Mukherjee, after the receipt of advice from Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, also carries the taint of flawed death sentence by the Supreme Court.
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify">
<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify">
The Supreme Court&rsquo;s five-judge Constitution Bench judgment in Bachan Singh v State of Punjab (1980) is the source of contemporary death penalty jurisprudence in India. It limited the death penalty to the rarest of rare crimes, and laid down the principle that the courts must impose the death sentence on a convict only if the alternative sentence of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed. For achieving these twin objectives, the court held that judges must consider the aggravating features of the crime, as well as the mitigating factors of the criminal. However, the application of its principles by the courts to various cases has been very uneven and inconsistent.
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify">
<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify">
The Sangeet judgement has reaffirmed that Bachan is the correct precedent for awarding death penalty. The relevant findings of the two-Judge Bench comprising Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Madan B. Lokur in Sangeet, to paraphrase, are:
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify">
<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify">
1. The reliance on Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, delivered by a three-Judge Bench in 1983, as a valid legal precedent by many subsequent Benches to justify death sentences is flawed. Machhi Singh sought to compare aggravating circumstances pertaining to a crime with the mitigating circumstances pertaining to a criminal. These are completely distinct and different elements and cannot be compared with one another. A balance sheet cannot be drawn up of two distinct and different constituents of an incident. Bachan Singh resolutely refrained from balancing these elements, because it leads to arbitrary decisions by a Judge.
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify">
<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify">
2. Machhi Singh sought to standardize crimes into five absolute categories, in order to identify the rarest of rare crime deserving death sentence. These five categories are manner of commission of murder, motive for commission of murder, anti-social or socially abhorrent nature of the crime, magnitude of crime and personality of victim of murder. These categories enlarge the scope for imposing death penalty that was greatly restricted by Bachan Singh.
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify">
<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify">
3. Despite Bachan Singh, primacy still seems to be given to the nature of the crime. The circumstances of the criminal, referred to in Bachan Singh, appear to have taken a bit of a back seat in the sentencing process.
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify">
<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify">
The Hindu has scrutinized each Supreme Court judgment in the 15 cases and found that applying Sangeet the executive could recommend commuting the death sentences in all the cases.&nbsp;
</div>',
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$metaTitle = 'LATEST NEWS UPDATES | A ray of hope for Afzal, other death-row prisoners -V Venkatesan'
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-The Hindu





Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused





The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14...'
$disp = '<div style="text-align: justify">-The Hindu</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify"><em>Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused</em></div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14 death-row convicts including Afzal Guru, whose mercy petitions have been turned over to it by the President for fresh advice.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The one mercy petition presently pending with President Pranab Mukherjee, after the receipt of advice from Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, also carries the taint of flawed death sentence by the Supreme Court.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The Supreme Court&rsquo;s five-judge Constitution Bench judgment in Bachan Singh v State of Punjab (1980) is the source of contemporary death penalty jurisprudence in India. It limited the death penalty to the rarest of rare crimes, and laid down the principle that the courts must impose the death sentence on a convict only if the alternative sentence of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed. For achieving these twin objectives, the court held that judges must consider the aggravating features of the crime, as well as the mitigating factors of the criminal. However, the application of its principles by the courts to various cases has been very uneven and inconsistent.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The Sangeet judgement has reaffirmed that Bachan is the correct precedent for awarding death penalty. The relevant findings of the two-Judge Bench comprising Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Madan B. Lokur in Sangeet, to paraphrase, are:</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">1. The reliance on Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, delivered by a three-Judge Bench in 1983, as a valid legal precedent by many subsequent Benches to justify death sentences is flawed. Machhi Singh sought to compare aggravating circumstances pertaining to a crime with the mitigating circumstances pertaining to a criminal. These are completely distinct and different elements and cannot be compared with one another. A balance sheet cannot be drawn up of two distinct and different constituents of an incident. Bachan Singh resolutely refrained from balancing these elements, because it leads to arbitrary decisions by a Judge.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">2. Machhi Singh sought to standardize crimes into five absolute categories, in order to identify the rarest of rare crime deserving death sentence. These five categories are manner of commission of murder, motive for commission of murder, anti-social or socially abhorrent nature of the crime, magnitude of crime and personality of victim of murder. These categories enlarge the scope for imposing death penalty that was greatly restricted by Bachan Singh.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">3. Despite Bachan Singh, primacy still seems to be given to the nature of the crime. The circumstances of the criminal, referred to in Bachan Singh, appear to have taken a bit of a back seat in the sentencing process.</div><div style="text-align: justify"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify">The Hindu has scrutinized each Supreme Court judgment in the 15 cases and found that applying Sangeet the executive could recommend commuting the death sentences in all the cases.&nbsp;</div>'
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A ray of hope for Afzal, other death-row prisoners -V Venkatesan

-The Hindu Supreme Court ruling gives the benefit of the doubt to accused The Supreme Court judgment, in the case of Sangeet v. State of Haryana, delivered on November 20 could make the government give the benefit of the doubt to 14 death-row convicts including Afzal Guru, whose mercy petitions have been turned over to it by the President for fresh advice. The one mercy petition presently pending with President Pranab Mukherjee, after the receipt of advice from Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, also carries the taint of flawed death sentence by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court’s five-judge Constitution Bench judgment in Bachan Singh v State of Punjab (1980) is the source of contemporary death penalty jurisprudence in India. It limited the death penalty to the rarest of rare crimes, and laid down the principle that the courts must impose the death sentence on a convict only if the alternative sentence of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed. For achieving these twin objectives, the court held that judges must consider the aggravating features of the crime, as well as the mitigating factors of the criminal. However, the application of its principles by the courts to various cases has been very uneven and inconsistent. The Sangeet judgement has reaffirmed that Bachan is the correct precedent for awarding death penalty. The relevant findings of the two-Judge Bench comprising Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Madan B. Lokur in Sangeet, to paraphrase, are: 1. The reliance on Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, delivered by a three-Judge Bench in 1983, as a valid legal precedent by many subsequent Benches to justify death sentences is flawed. Machhi Singh sought to compare aggravating circumstances pertaining to a crime with the mitigating circumstances pertaining to a criminal. These are completely distinct and different elements and cannot be compared with one another. A balance sheet cannot be drawn up of two distinct and different constituents of an incident. Bachan Singh resolutely refrained from balancing these elements, because it leads to arbitrary decisions by a Judge. 2. Machhi Singh sought to standardize crimes into five absolute categories, in order to identify the rarest of rare crime deserving death sentence. These five categories are manner of commission of murder, motive for commission of murder, anti-social or socially abhorrent nature of the crime, magnitude of crime and personality of victim of murder. These categories enlarge the scope for imposing death penalty that was greatly restricted by Bachan Singh. 3. Despite Bachan Singh, primacy still seems to be given to the nature of the crime. The circumstances of the criminal, referred to in Bachan Singh, appear to have taken a bit of a back seat in the sentencing process. The Hindu has scrutinized each Supreme Court judgment in the 15 cases and found that applying Sangeet the executive could recommend commuting the death sentences in all the cases.