Jagmohan Singh v State of Uttar Pradesh (1972)

This is the first Constitution Bench challenge to the death penalty that you need to know, and it is the foundation on which Bachan Singh (1980) later built. The appellant, sentenced to death for murder, argued that capital punishment itself was unconstitutional — that it destroyed every Article 19 freedom, that leaving the choice between death and life imprisonment to judges without statutory standards was excessive delegation and arbitrary under Article 14, and that there was no "procedure established by law" for choosing the sentence under Article 21.

The Court rejected every argument. Its central idea is one you will meet again in every sentencing question: standards for choosing a sentence cannot be laid down in advance; the safeguard lies in judicial discretion exercised on well-recognised principles, weighing aggravating and mitigating circumstances, and corrected on appeal.

Some six or seven years before the offence, Shivraj Singh, the father of the appellant's cousin Jagbir Singh, had been murdered. Chhotey Singh was charged with that murder but acquitted by the High Court, and ill-feeling followed.

On 10 September 1969, a day after a quarrel over a right to irrigate fields, the appellant, armed with a country-made pistol, and Jagbir Singh, armed with a lathi, hid in a bajra field. When Chhotey Singh passed by, the appellant asked him to stop so the matter could be settled "once for all". Chhotey Singh ran; he was chased and shot in the back, and died.

The Sessions Judge at Shahjahanpur sentenced the appellant to death under s. 302 IPC; the Allahabad High Court confirmed it, finding no extenuating circumstances. Special leave was granted limited to the question of sentence.

1. Should the Supreme Court interfere with the death sentence on the facts?
2. Is the death sentence for murder an unreasonable restriction on the freedoms in Article 19, and not in the public interest?
3. Does s. 302 IPC, by leaving the choice between death and life imprisonment to judges without standards, amount to excessive delegation of legislative power?
4. Does that unguided discretion violate Article 14?
5. Is there no "procedure established by law" for choosing the sentence, so that Article 21 is violated?

The appeal was dismissed and the death sentence upheld. "In the result, the appeal fails and is dismissed."

On the sentence in this case

The Court does not normally interfere with sentence unless the High Court has disregarded recognised principles and there has been a failure of justice. Here "The appellant had armed himself with a gun and was lying in wait for the victim to pass. There was no immediate cause. The murder was entirely motivated by ill-feelings nurtured for years." The Court was "not inclined to interfere with the sentence imposed by the High Court."

Article 19 — capital punishment is not unreasonable

Assuming that the right to live is basic to the Article 19 freedoms, the question was whether s. 302 passes the test of reasonableness and public interest. The Court approached it "with objectivity and a proper measure of self restraint".

• The American experience: in Furman v Georgia, only two of nine judges "could be persuaded to hold that capital punishment per se is constitutionally impermissible." And India has no equivalent of the Eighth Amendment: "we do not have, in our constitution any provision like the Eighth Amendment".
• The Constitution itself contemplates it: the framers "were well aware of the existence of capital punishment as a permissible punishment under the law", as Article 72(1)(c) (the President's power of pardon "in all cases where the sentence is a sentence of death") shows.
• Western studies: they "consider all murders as stereotypes", but some murders "are diabolical in conception" and cruel in execution. The Court had "grave doubts about the expediency of transplanting Western experience in our country."
• The Law Commission's 35th Report (1967) concluded that "capital punishment should be retained in the present state of the country." On that, "it will be difficult to hold that capital punishment as such is unreasonable or not required in the public interest."
• Procedural safeguards: committal, trial before an experienced Sessions Judge, compulsory confirmation by the High Court, and appeal — "there are inbuilt procedural safeguards against any hasty decision."
• Parliament's view: bills and resolutions for abolition had been rejected or withdrawn; "the representatives of the people do not welcome the prospect of abolishing capital punishment." Conclusion: "we are not prepared to conclude that capital punishment, as such, is either unreasonable or not in the public interest."

Excessive delegation — no standards are possible

Before the 1955 amendment of the Code of Criminal Procedure, death was the normal sentence for murder and the court had to give reasons for passing a lesser one; that provision was deleted, leaving the choice to judicial discretion. The Court held there was "no merit in this submission." The policy of Indian criminal law "is to fix a maximum penalty-the same being intended for the worst cases, leaving a very wide discretion in the matter of punishment to the Judge." Relying on the UK Royal Commission (1953) and McGautha v California, it held: "The impossibility of laying down standards is at the very core of the criminal law as administered in India which invests the Judges with a very wide discretion in the matter of fixing the degree of punishment." And: "The exercise of judicial discretion on well-recognised principles is, in the final analysis, the safest possible safeguard for the accused."

Article 14 — no discrimination in judicial discretion

"If the Law has given to the Judge a wide discretion in the matter of sentence to be exercised by him after balancing all the aggravating and mitigating circumstances of the crime, it will be impossible to say that there would be at all any discrimination, since facts and Circumstances of one case can hardly be the same as the facts and circumstances of another." Following Budhan Choudhry v State of Bihar, Article 14 can hardly be invoked in matters of judicial discretion.

Article 21 — the procedure exists

The accused knows from committal that he faces death; he can bring mitigating circumstances on record, examine himself, and address the court on sentence. Further, "there is nothing in the Criminal Procedure Code which prevents additional evidence being taken." The Court emphasised that "the court is principally concerned with the facts and circumstances, whether aggravating or mitigating, which are connected with the particular crime under inquiry." Sections 306(2) and 309(2) CrPC (1898) are part of the procedure established by law, "and, hence, the death sentence imposed after trial in accordance with the procedure established by law is not unconstitutional under Article 21."

The death sentence for murder under s. 302 IPC is constitutionally valid. It is not an unreasonable restriction under Article 19; leaving the choice between death and life imprisonment to the judge is not excessive delegation, because standards for that choice cannot be laid down and judicial discretion exercised on recognised principles, weighing aggravating and mitigating circumstances and subject to appeal, is the safeguard; such discretion does not offend Article 14; and a sentence of death passed after trial under the Code is imposed according to procedure established by law under Article 21.

• Direct question: Is capital punishment constitutional in India? Trace the development of the law. Start with Jagmohan Singh (all four challenges rejected), then Bachan Singh, which revisited the question, then Deena (method of execution).
• Sentencing question: Discuss judicial discretion in sentencing. Use the passage that the impossibility of laying down standards is at the very core of Indian criminal law, and the s. 326 example the Court gave — a slight fracture and scooping out a victim's eyes fall under the same section but cannot deserve the same punishment.
• Short note: Jagmohan Singh v State of UP. Five-judge bench, unanimous, Palekar J; Articles 19, 14, 21 and excessive delegation all rejected; aggravating and mitigating circumstances to be weighed.
• Answer-writing tip: say plainly that it was decided under the old Code of Criminal Procedure (1898), whose ss. 306(2) and 309(2) the Court relied on.