Round 100 homicide instances pending earlier than Further District and Classes Choose Ravi Kumar Diwakar in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar have been transferred to the courtroom of the District and Classes Choose by way of an administrative order, officers stated on Wednesday. The transfer got here after Diwakar’s court handed down 22 death sentences to 22 convicts in 10 instances over the previous 4 months.
The instances, involving offences punishable with dying or life imprisonment, had been transferred from the fast-track courtroom headed by Diwakar to the courtroom of District and Classes Choose Virendra Kumar Singh, authorities counsel Kuldeep Kumar advised PTI.
District Bar Affiliation president Pramod Tyagi stated there have been apprehensions amongst attorneys and litigants over the potential of the courtroom awarding capital punishment. By way of an administrative order issued on Tuesday, the district choose determined to recall the instances to his personal courtroom, he stated.
The cases that were earlier handled by Diwakar included the murders of a lawyer, a house guard and a farmer, in addition to a freeway robbery-murder.
Diwakar’s courtroom awarded three dying sentences within the homicide of lawyer Sameer Saifi on April 6, adopted by 4 in one other homicide case on April 28. Two convicts had been sentenced to dying on June 20, one on July 2, two on July 6 and 4 on July 17. 5 extra dying sentences had been handed down in August, PTI reported.
The tempo of the rulings has drawn consideration as a result of trial courts throughout Uttar Pradesh awarded 28 dying sentences in 20 instances throughout the entire of 2025, in response to the Demise Penalty in India: Annual Statistics Report 2025 by the Sq. Circle Clinic at NALSAR College of Regulation, Hyderabad.
The dying sentences aren’t instantly enforceable. Beneath Indian legislation, a dying sentence imposed by a periods courtroom have to be submitted to the Excessive Court docket for affirmation.
The frequency of Diwakar’s rulings has additionally revived dialogue round capital punishment and the “rarest of uncommon” doctrine, below which the dying penalty is supposed to be reserved for essentially the most distinctive instances.
WHO IS RAVI KUMAR DIWAKAR?
Born in July 1980, Diwakar was appointed as a civil judge in 2009 and has served in a number of Uttar Pradesh districts, together with Sultanpur, Budaun, Varanasi and Bareilly. He has served in Muzaffarnagar since November 2025.
He first got here into the nationwide highlight in 2022, when, as a civil choose in Varanasi, he ordered a videographic survey of the Gyanvapi mosque complicated. He later reported receiving dying threats and malicious calls from worldwide numbers following the order.
Diwakar additionally drew consideration in March 2024 after referring to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for example of Plato’s “thinker king” in an order associated to the 2010 Bareilly riots. The Allahabad Excessive Court docket later expunged the remarks.
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(with inputs from PTI)
