The Rarest of Rare Doctrine in Crisis

Abstract

Capital punishment in India has been a topic of debate for a very long time, identifying the real meaning of “rarest of rare cases”. In 1980, a five-judge constitutional bench of the Supreme Court of India, in Bachan Singh vs the State of Punjab, attempted to constitutionalise capital punishment by giving the rationale of a rarest of rare cases. From that time hereof, the doctrine has helped to give a better judicial positioning in deciding the cases concerning the death penalty, but it has also increased the unpredictability of the same