In a major change in death sentences in India, the Calcutta High Court disposed of 20 death penalty appeals in 2025 which is a record number in six years, where most death sentences were commuted to life sentences and some convicts were also acquitted.
As per data available from the courts, 18 death sentences became life sentences, five convicts were acquitted, and one appellant had died in jail while his appeal was pending. While 16 of these were heard in Kolkata, the remaining four were heard at the Jalpaiguri circuit bench. A total of only two of these were heard in 2020.
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Increasing importance of mitigating factors in verdicts
Apparently, this is a natural progression of jurisprudence over the years, keeping in view of the various rulings made by the Indian Supreme Court, which has continuously emphasised that courts should consider mitigating factors before approving a death sentence.
Supreme Court in a judgment made on the Manoj vs. The State of MP case in 2022, asked the judiciary to take into consideration the psychiatric condition, socio-economic factors, age and the scope of reform. It also tightened the interpretation of the “rarest of rare” doctrine, limiting death penalty to only the most exceptional cases.
These principles were applied in several Calcutta High Court rulings last year.
The death sentence of Suresh Paswan, 45, convicted of raping and murdering a toddler in Kidderpore, was commuted to life imprisonment without remission for 50 years. The court relied on reports noting mild mental disability and extreme poverty. Observing that his father died before he was born and that he grew up in a stable, the bench held his life had been shaped by deprivation.
In another case, a bench of Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Md Shabbar Rashidi reduced the death penalty of 58-year-old Srimanta Tung, convicted of raping and killing a minor domestic worker, to life imprisonment without remission for 20 years, citing his advanced age. The judges noted Supreme Court guidance that convicts who are too young or too old should ordinarily not face execution.
For 24-year-old Susanta Chowdhury, who stabbed his former girlfriend 45 times, the court held that the offence, though brutal, did not meet the strict “rarest of rare” threshold. His sentence was changed to life imprisonment without remission for 40 years.
Faster disposal after procedural changes
Lawyers say the unusually high disposal rate followed administrative changes. Division benches earlier handled anticipatory bail pleas along with death appeals. After directions from the Supreme Court, such bail matters were reassigned to single-judge benches, allowing division benches to focus on serious criminal appeals.
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Senior advocate Kaushik Gupta told The Times of India that the judiciary increasingly views execution as incompatible with a reform-oriented justice system. “Our confinements are called correctional homes. Why not give convicts a chance to correct themselves?” he said.
The numbers suggest a clear judicial tilt toward life imprisonment over capital punishment, with courts giving greater weight to the possibility of rehabilitation.
