Hasty Death Penalty Undermines Rule of Law, Says SC on Acquittal in Uttarakhand Case

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has acquitted a death row prisoner convicted of raping a girl whose body was found in 2014, observing that the “hasty” application of capital punishment undermines the rule of law.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sanjay Karol, and Sandeep Mehta noted that the prosecution had failed to establish a “complete and unbroken” chain of circumstances to hold the accused guilty. The court also acquitted the co-accused, who had been sentenced to seven years in jail in connection with the case registered at Kathgodam police station in Uttarakhand in November 2014.

“Trial courts as well as high courts are required to exercise the highest degree of circumspection before awarding the death penalty,” the apex court said in its September 10 verdict. It added that the “irreversible nature” of capital punishment requires it to be imposed only in the “rarest of rare” cases.

The court further observed: “Any hasty or mechanical application of the death penalty, without ensuring the highest standards of proof and procedural fairness, not only undermines the rule of law but risks the gravest miscarriage of justice by extinguishing a human life irretrievably.”

The verdict came on appeals filed by the two convicts challenging an October 2019 order of the Uttarakhand High Court, which had confirmed the death penalty of one accused and upheld the seven-year jail term for the other. The Supreme Court noted that the prosecution’s case rested solely on circumstantial evidence, including motive, the “last seen together” theory, and forensic material, as no eyewitnesses were available.