New Delhi: In a departure from the 2019-2023 trend of trial courts handing down a majority of death sentences for sexual offences, it was murder that accounted for the bulk of the death penalties last year.
Signalling a change, the trial courts handed down roughly 62.6% of all death sentences in 2024 for murder, according to the ninth edition of “Death Penalty in India: Annual Statistics Report” published by Project 39A at National Law University, Delhi.
The report also revealed that the high courts across the country handed down nine death sentences, confirming capital punishment for four prisoners convicted of sexual offences, one prisoner convicted of murder, along with kidnapping, and three murder convicts.
“These rates signify the continuing influence of sexual offences on outcomes in death penalty cases, despite a downward shift at trial courts,” the report added.
The report also spoke of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly passing the Aparajita (Women and Child) Protection Bill, 2024, in August last year to effect harsher punishments for sexual violence. The law introduced a mandatory death penalty for aggravated rape resulting in death or a persistent vegetative state of the victim, besides making the offence of rape punishable with life imprisonment or death in the state. However, the President has, so far, not cleared the Bill.
In 2024, sexual offences made up 26.62% of all death sentences handed down by trial courts, showing a “downward shift” from 2023, when the trial courts had given the death penalty in 53.3% of the 120 death sentences specifically for the offence of homicidal rape.
“Since 2019, sexual offences have comprised the majority of death sentences imposed in India, accounting for over 50% of all death penalty cases at trial courts in each calendar year since then. This is the first calendar year since 2019 where these offences comprise less than half of all capital cases and death sentences,” the report said.
While trial court death sentences for sexual offences have seen a noticeable decrease since 2019, sexual offences continue to dominate the death penalty and life imprisonment sentences handed down by high courts, the report added.
(Edited by Mafdhurita Goswami)