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Issues: (i) Whether review petitions arising out of death sentence cases must be heard in open Court with a limited oral hearing instead of being disposed of by circulation; (ii) whether cases in which death sentence has been awarded should be heard by a Bench of not less than three Judges and whether additional Judges should be added at the review stage; (iii) whether the petitioner's separate challenge based on alleged prior incarceration and related grounds warranted interference.
Issue (i): Whether review petitions arising out of death sentence cases must be heard in open Court with a limited oral hearing instead of being disposed of by circulation.
Analysis: Review jurisdiction is part of the Court's constitutional power under Article 137, and the procedure for review under Article 145(1)(e) is subject to constitutional requirements. In death sentence matters, the right to life is at stake and the consequence is irreversible. The Court treated death penalty cases as a distinct class because sentencing may turn on close balancing of aggravating and mitigating factors, and different judicial minds may reach different outcomes on the same facts. In that setting, a limited oral hearing at the review stage was held to be an element of fair, just and reasonable procedure. The earlier rule permitting review by circulation was upheld generally, but death sentence review petitions were carved out as an exception on constitutional grounds.
Conclusion: Yes. Death sentence review petitions must receive a limited oral hearing in open Court; the rule of circulation does not apply to that class of cases.
Issue (ii): Whether cases in which death sentence has been awarded should be heard by a Bench of not less than three Judges and whether additional Judges should be added at the review stage.
Analysis: The Court noted that the then applicable Supreme Court Rules, 2013 provided that every cause, appeal or proceeding arising out of a case in which death sentence has been confirmed or awarded by the High Court shall be heard by a Bench of not less than three Judges. The Court accepted that three judicial minds should apply themselves at the final stage of death sentence matters, but declined to require a Bench of five Judges. It also rejected the suggestion that additional Judges be added at the review stage, observing that review is ordinarily to be heard by the same Bench that heard the appeal.
Conclusion: Death sentence matters must be heard by a Bench of at least three Judges, but no rule was laid down requiring five Judges or additional Judges at review.
Issue (iii): Whether the petitioner's separate challenge based on alleged prior incarceration and related grounds warranted interference.
Analysis: The Court held that time spent in custody during proceedings does not convert a death sentence into life imprisonment, and that a life sentence means imprisonment for the remainder of the convict's life. The Court found no basis to reopen the concluded proceedings or to accept the challenge founded on the length of incarceration or the ancillary statutory arguments pressed in support of it.
Conclusion: No. The separate challenge failed and the petition was dismissed.
Final Conclusion: The judgment carved out death sentence review matters as a special constitutional category entitled to limited oral hearing in open Court, affirmed a minimum three-Judge hearing structure for such matters, and left the separately challenged petition dismissed.
Ratio Decidendi: Where the fundamental right to life is directly engaged by a death sentence, review procedure must conform to fair, just and reasonable process and therefore includes a limited oral hearing in open Court, while the general review-by-circulation rule remains applicable to other review petitions.
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