95% of Death Sentences Given by Trial Courts in 2025 Didn't Meet Constitutional Requirements: Report

New Delhi: Over the course of 2025, trial courts across the country sentenced 128 persons to death. However, a report released by the Square Circle Clinic at NALSAR, Hyderabad has found that "79 out of 83 cases (95.18%) decided by trial courts in 2025 do not adhere to constitutional requirements".

These requirements and safeguards on death penalty sentencing were laid out by the Supreme Court in Manoj v. State of Madhya Pradesh, and elevated to a fair trial right requirement in Vasanta Sampat Dupare v. Union of India in August 2025.

Research by the Square Circle Clinic has found that death sentences given out by trial courts are confirmed by higher courts in only a minority of cases. Even more importantly, many of these death sentences were overturned into acquittals. The report notes:

"In the last 10 years, of the 1085 death sentences (647 cases) that were adjudicated by the High Courts (regardless of when the Sessions Courts imposed the death sentence), 106 death sentences, i.e, 9.77%, were confirmed. On the other hand, the High Courts have acquitted 326 persons from death row in 191 cases (34.65%). The acquittal rate is close to four times the confirmation rate."

This trend is proven in the Supreme Court too. In the last three years, the Supreme Court has not confirmed a single death sentence. Last year too, the high courts and Supreme Court were not in agreement with a high number of lower court decisions about death penalty sentencing:

"In 2025 itself, the High Courts overturned death sentences into acquittals in over 25% of the cases it decided (22 out of 85 cases). The Supreme Court, on its part, acquitted accused persons in over 50% of the cases it decided in 2025 (10 out of 19 cases). 364 persons who should not even have been convicted unjustifiably suffered the pains of death row."

Be that as it may, sessions courts continue to hand out death sentences, the report notes:

"In 2025, Sessions Courts imposed the death sentence on 128 persons (118 males, 10 females) in 94 cases. 574 persons were on death row as of 31.12.2025 - this is the largest number of persons on death row at the end of a calendar year since 2016."

What all this data signifies, according to the Square Circle Clinic, is that wrongful conviction is a "persistent and serious systemic concern". Combined with death penalty sentencing taking place in trial courts without the required safeguards, and it means the innocent people and their families are bearing the brunt of not just long incarceration but also of death row.

"With the large proportions of acquittals and commutations, it is undeniable that there is an exaggerated and unjustified use of the death penalty," the report notes. "...looking at the data of the past 10 years, even as it is restricted only to death
penalty cases, it is increasingly clear that the justice system is not only broken but is facing a serious crisis - a crisis of credibility that is increasingly becoming a crisis of legitimacy."

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