3 min learnNew DelhiUp to date: Aug 20, 2026 04:31 PM IST
Round 100 homicide instances pending earlier than Extra District and Periods Choose Ravikumar Diwakar, who had handed down 22 demise sentences in 10 instances within the final 4 months, have been transferred to the Court docket of the District and Periods Choose by an administrative order. The district decide’s route, a replica of which is with The Indian Specific, particulars the 97 issues ‘recalled’ from the court docket of Extra District and Periods Choose (FTC 3) Ravikumar Diwakar on August 18.
Authorities counsel Kuldeep Kumar instructed PTI that the instances, involving offences punishable with demise or life imprisonment, had been transferred from the fast-track court docket headed by Diwakar to the court docket of District and Periods Choose Virendra Kumar Singh.
Talking to The Indian Specific, Muzaffarnagar District Bar Affiliation president Pramod Tyagi mentioned attorneys and litigants had expressed apprehensions that the court docket may award the demise penalty. He mentioned a lot of the contested instances had now been transferred. “It’s inside the jurisdiction of the district decide to resolve which instances are to be transferred and to which court docket,” Tyagi mentioned, including that the switch of instances was a routine administrative train.
The Indian Specific had on August 17 reported that Between April 6 and July 17 – barely 100 days – Choose Ravi Kumar Diwakar, Extra District and Periods Choose presiding over Quick Observe Court docket No. 3 in Muzaffarnagar, sentenced 17 individuals to demise throughout seven separate homicide trials, out of twenty-two accused.
Underneath Sections 407 to 412 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, no demise sentence handed by a Periods Court docket will be carried out till the Excessive Court docket confirms it. So, all demise sentences awarded by the Muzaffarnagar trial court docket will go to the Allahabad Excessive Court docket for affirmation, alongside any appeals the convicts file independently.
Loss of life penalty in India
India retains the demise penalty in regulation, however its use is circumscribed by strict judicial requirements and layered procedural safeguards. The Supreme Court has constantly held that capital punishment could also be imposed solely within the “rarest of uncommon” instances the place the crime is of remarkable gravity and life imprisonment is deemed insufficient.
Even when a trial court docket awards the demise sentence, it doesn’t robotically attain finality. Underneath the Code of Criminal Procedure, each demise sentence have to be confirmed by the involved Excessive Court docket, which re-examines each the conviction and the sentence.
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The demise row punishment stays deeply contentious in India as these in favour of capital punishment argue that it serves as a vital deterrent for heinous crimes and offers justice to victims’ households. In distinction, some reject this concept on the grounds of a scarcity of conclusive proof that demise row punishment deters crime extra successfully than life imprisonment.
