Supreme Court: Agreeing to hear the appeal against the capital punishment imposed on the convicts in the infamous ‘Nirbhaya’ case, the 3-judge bench of Dipak Misra, R. Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan, JJ allowed the accused persons to file affidavits along with documents stating about the mitigating circumstances.
It was argued that neither the trial Judge nor the Delhi Court had considered the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, as are required to be considered in view of the Constitution Bench decision in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab, (1980) 2 SCC 684. It was further argued that Section 235(2) Cr.P.C. is not a mere formality and in a case when there are more than one accused, it is obligatory on the part of the learned trial Judge to hear the accused individually on the question of sentence and deal with him.
Accepting the contention, the Court noticed that there are two modes of dealing the matter at hand, one is to remand the matter and the other is to direct the accused persons to produce necessary data and advance the contention on the question of sentence. However, considering the nature of the case, the bench decided to go with the second mode.
The Court also allowed the prosecution to file necessary affidavits with regard to the circumstances or reasons for sustenance of the sentence. Additionally, the prosecution can also put forth any refutation, after the copies of the affidavits by the learned counsel for the accused persons within a week.
In addition to the above order, the Court also directed the Superintendent of Jail to submit a report with regard to the conduct of the accused persons while they are in custody. [Mukesh v. State for NCT of Delhi, 2017 SCC OnLine SC 90, order dated 03.02.2017]