Over 1,200 persons given death sentence in 10 years: Study

Sessions courts in India handed death penalties to 1,279 persons between 2016 and 2025, a study by criminal reforms advocacy group The Square Circle Clinic showed on Wednesday.

The persons were given 1,310 death penalties, which meant that multiple death sentences may have been imposed on the same person over the years.

In only 70 cases the sentence was confirmed by High Courts, a number that the advocacy group described as “staggeringly low”.

The study added that by the end of the last year, 574 persons were on death row in India, the highest since 2016 when the number stood at 400.

In 2025 alone, sessions courts sentenced 128 persons to death in 94 cases. In the same year, while High Courts overturned death sentences into acquittals in more than 25% of the matters they decided, the Supreme Court acquitted the accused in more than half of the cases it heard.

It added that for the third consecutive year, the Supreme Court did not confirm any death sentences.

“The low rates of confirmation over the past 10 years reflects the appellate judiciary’s concerns with the system’s failure to adhere to due process guarantees and coincides with the Supreme Court’s increased scrutiny of due process safeguards at the sentencing stage,” the study said.

It added that “wrongful or...

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