Doctrine Of Rarest Of Rare And Reformative System: A Legal Analysis

Shreshth Bhatnagar, Assistant Professor (Law), Alliance School of Law, Alliance University, Bengaluru

ABSTRACT

The Hon'ble Supreme Court of India formerly advanced the "Rarest of Rare" theory in Indian law, and as a result, the Indian legal system has adopted the stance that "The life sentence is the rule, and the death penalty is the exception." Lawmakers, however, have not enacted yet "What is the rarest of the rare" so absence of any helpful definition for application of that doctrine our legal system talks about "It depends upon the facts and the circumstances of the case," "brutality of the crime," "conduct of the offender previous history of his involvement in a crime," "chance of reforming and integrating him into the society," etc. In light of this, it becomes extremely perplexing and controversial in its use in India's criminal justice system The standard test used to determine whether to sentence a convict to death is whether maintaining an orderly society necessitates ending the life of the person who committed the crime and whether failing to do so would render the death penalty provided by Section 302 of the IPC null and void.

According to the Supreme Court in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab1, "Death penalty should be imposed when collective conscience of the society is so shocked that it will expect the holders of the judicial power centre to inflict death penalty regardless of their personal opinion as regards desirability of otherwise maintaining death penalty." Since 1980, the continued use of the death penalty has been a contentious topic in our nation. Although in theory the death penalty is still the harshest punishment possible, it can only be applied in the most extreme circumstances. If the penalty cannot be given in 99% of circumstances, the question of supremacy emerges. Even the theory of the rarest of rare occurrences has occasionally come under fire for a variety of reasons. In this way, the judges' perspectives also differ from one another. In this research the researcher has tried all the possible ways to make a nexus between reformative approach of Indian justice system with Rarest of the Rare theory.

Keywords: Rarest of Rare, Supreme Court, IPC, Death penalty, Indian Justice System.