Death penalty should be resorted to by courts only if the crime is an “uncommon” one, the Supreme Court has held.
No mitigating circumstances of the convict should should be able to overcome the aggravation or, for one, the brutality of the crime, the court explained. The crime should be of a nature that leaves the court with the opinion that life sentence would be inadequate.
“All murders are inhuman. For imposing capital sentence, the crime must be uncommon in nature, where even after taking into account the mitigating circumstances the Court must be of the opinion that the sentence of imprisonment for life is inadequate and there is no alternative but to impose death sentence,” a three-judge Bench of Justices A.M. Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and C.T. Ravikumar observed in a recent judgment.
