What is rarest of rare?

The death penalty has always been a grey area

NEW DELHI: So who gets the death sentence and who is spared? There is no certainty on this one. The death sentence is given only in the 'rarest of rare cases'. Crimes committed with diabolic designs and which are dastardly in all respects merit the sentence.

The Delhi High Court on Monday ordered death sentence for Delhi lawyer Santosh Singh for raping and murdering his classmate Priyadarshini Mattoo a decade ago. But it recently showed leniency for a man who had mercilessly killed a child and some other members of his family. The judges didn't find the death sentence an appropriate punishment for this rarest of rare case.

Former Chief Justice P N Bhagwati has said that at least there should be unanimity among judges on awarding the extreme penalty. He also found some "freakishness" in imposition of death penalty.

Three murder accused, Jeeta Singh, Kashmira Singh and Harbans Singh, were sentenced to death by the Allahabad High Court 31 years ago. They were found equally guilty in murdering four members of a family.

Each of them separately challenged their sentence before the Supreme Court. Jeeta Singh's petition came first. A Bench of then Justices Y V Chandrachud, Krishna Iyer and NL Untwalia dismissed his appeal. Later, Kashmira Singh sent his appeal from jail. A Bench comprising of Justices M Fazal Ali and Bhagwati allowed him limited relief by reducing the death penalty into life term. Thus, while Kashmira Singh's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by one Bench, the death penalty imposed on Jeeta Singh was confirmed by another. He was hanged on October 6,1981..

Later, Harbans Singh's appeal also came up for hearing and this time, it was still another Bench that rejected his petition on October 16, 1978. The judges rejected his plea for review of the verdict also.

Though the court's registry had mentioned in its report that Kashmira Singh's death sentence was already commuted, this fact was not brought to the notice of the Bench that was deciding Harbans Singh's fate. Harbans Singh would have been executed on October 6, 1981 along with Jeeta Singh, but fortunately for him, he filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court. The Court stayed the execution of his death sentence.

When his writ petition came up for hearing before yet another Bench of the then Chief Justice Chandrachud and Justices D A Desai and A N Sen, his lawyers told them that Kashmira Singh's death penalty had been commuted by another Bench.

The Bench urged the President for reconsideration of Harbans Singh's clemency petition though he had earlier dismissed it. "This is a classic case which illustrates the judicial vagaries in the imposition of death penalty and demonstrates vividly how the infliction of death penalty is influenced by the composition of the Bench," observed Justice Bhagwati.  Urging the President to grant clemency to Harbans Singh, CJI Chandrachud had observed: "The fate of Jeeta Singh has a posthumous moral to tell. He cannot profit by the direction because he is now beyond the processes of human tribunals."