NLU Delhi’s nine-month-old death penalty clinic helped death penalty convicts Shabnam and Saleem win relief in the Supreme Court, which quashed their death warrants on Wednesday after having stayed their execution earlier in the week . The clinic, according to its press release, coordinated the lega...

The legislature of the US state of Nebraska has approved abolishing the death penalty there in a 30-19 vote, a sufficient majority to avert a veto attempt by Governor Pete Ricketts, Efe news agency reported. The sponsors of the initiative needed exactly 30 votes to overcome the veto issued Tuesday b...

The Supreme Court today stayed the execution of death warrants of Shabnam and Salim - convicted for murdering seven members of the girl’s family, including a ten-month-old child, and whose death sentence was upheld by the top court on May 15 . “Execution of death warrant is stayed,” said the vacatio...

The Supreme Court Friday upheld the death sentence of a couple for killing all seven members of a girl’s family, holding that the “couple indulged in such debased act of multiple murders driven by infatuation and exhibited no remorse”. Upholding the death sentence of Shabnam and her partner Salim, a...

A court in Assam yesterday sentenced three people to death for abducting and beheading a Class 9 student in 2011. Arup Dutta, the son of Anu Dutta in Jagiroad near Guwahati, was abducted by Sanjoy Chandra and Bhim Das on July 1, 2011. The third accused Mohan Teron joined them later. They beheaded Du...

PTI reported that a Supreme Court bench headed by Justice AR Dave rejected the review of Yakub Abdul Razak Memon’s death penalty, after having stayed his execution on 2 June 2014 and upholding the sentence on 21 March 2013. Memon had planted explosives in cars in Mumbai, with 10 of his accomplices h...

The Delhi High Court today sentenced Vikas Yadav and his cousin Vishal Yadav to 30 years in prison for the murder of Nitish Katara, a friend of Vikas Yadav’s sister. But a special bench of Justice Gita Mittal and Justice JR. Midha rejected police and Nitish Katara’s mother Neelam Katara’s plea to aw...

After the Supreme Court had rejected all appeals against the convict in the Noida-based Nithari killings, Surinder Koli, the Allahabad high court commuted his death sentence in public interest litigation (PIL) of the People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR). Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justi...

The Supreme Court Wednesday upheld the death sentence of Vasanta Sampat Dupare who was convicted for raping a four-year-old minor girl child and then battering her to death. Dismissing Dupare’s appeal, a bench of Justice Dipak Misra, Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit said: “...

Scroll.in lists nine, mostly compelling, reasons for why convicted serial murdered Surendra Koli should not be hanged, including a lack of evidence, his apparent psychopathy, iffy confession and oher circumstances. Worth a read, at Scroll.in . Senior counsel Indira Jaising had obtained a stay on Kol...

The Supreme Court Friday extended its order putting on hold the execution of the death sentence of Nithari killer Surendra Koli till Oct 29. While extending the stay, an apex court bench headed by Chief Justice-designate Justice H.L. Dattu asked the senior counsel to place before them in bullet poin...

In a pre-dawn order at the residence of future CJI HL Dattu with Justice AR Dave, the Supreme Court has stayed the execution of Surinder Koli, who was convicted of the so-called Nithari serial murders and rapes that took place in Noida from 2005. Senior counsel Indira Jaising obtained the one-week s...

The new Chief Justice of India RM Lodha and a bench of two others stayed the death penalty of 2000 Red Fort shootout convict because he had already served 14 years [Times of India]

A Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) P Sathasivam, who retires tomorrow to make way for Justice RM Lodha as CJI, said that a constitution bench will look into whether the commuted death sentence of the seven conspiring assassins of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, should m...

Lawyer Nandita Saikia discusses how the recent criminal law recent reforms, imposing the death penalty for rape, are a symptom of the problem but not a solution.

A Supreme Court bench of CJI P Sathasivam, and Justices RM Lodha, HL Dattu and Sudhansu Jyoti Mukhopadhaya, commuted the death penalty of 1993 Delhi bomb blast convict Devender Pal Singh Bhullar to life imprisonment, citing its earlier Shatrughan Chauhan decision.

A Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) P Sathasivam today commuted the punishment for Rajiv Gandhi assassins Murugan, Santhan and Arivu from death penalty to life imprisonment on ground of “inordinate delay”, 15 years after the first ever mercy petitions were filed in the case.

Chief Justice of India (CJI) P Sathasivam and Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Shiva Kirti Singh argued that the right to seek mercy is a constitutional right not at the “discretion or whims of the executive”.

Supreme Court judges P Sathasivam and JS Khehar yesterday justified awarding the death penalty to the murderer of a seven-year-old boy, on the ground of his gender among other “aggravating circumstances”. Killing the sole male child of a family meant the lineage could not be carried forward, reporte...

The Supreme Court reaffirmed the death sentence upheld by the Bombay High Court in February 2011 against Ajmal Amir Kasab, one of the gunmen in the 26/11 Mumbai terrorism attack that killed 166. The bench of justices Aftab Alam and CK Prasasd said: “Ajmal Kasab’s act is very much an act of waging a ...