Confirmation of a Death Sentence

In one line

A Sessions Court can pronounce a death sentence but cannot make it effective; the High Court must look at the whole case again and confirm it.

In exam wording: Chapter XXX of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, sections 407 to 412, requires the submission of a sentence of death by the Court of Session to the High Court for confirmation, and sets out the High Court's powers on such a submission.

Why the law has this at all

Because a death sentence is the one punishment that cannot be corrected afterwards.

Every other error the criminal law makes is, in principle, reparable. A man wrongly imprisoned can be released. A fine can be refunded. A conviction can be set aside and a name restored. A man wrongly hanged cannot be given anything back.

So the law does something for this sentence that it does for no other: it refuses to let the sentencing court's own decision be final, and it refuses to leave the check to the convict's initiative. An appeal depends on somebody filing it, and a condemned man may be illiterate, unrepresented, or simply resigned. Confirmation happens by itself. The proceedings go up forthwith, and nothing can be done to him until two Judges of the High Court have looked at the case and put their names to it.

Note also how wide the reference is. This is not review of the sentence alone. Section 408 lets the High Court take further evidence on any point bearing on guilt or innocence, and section 409 lets it acquit. The whole case is reopened, because the whole case must be right.

Some words this chapter uses

Submission is the sending up of the proceedings; it is not an appeal and needs no party to move it.

Confirmation is the High Court's order making the sentence executable.

Annulling the conviction in section 409(b) means setting it aside as a conviction of that offence.

Section 407: the submission

Sub-section (1). When the Court of Session passes a sentence of death, the proceedings shall forthwith be submitted to the High Court, and the sentence shall not be executed unless it is confirmed by the High Court.

Sub-section (2). The Court passing the sentence shall commit the convicted person to jail custody under a warrant.

Three words carry the section. Forthwith, so there is no waiting. Shall, so it is not for the Sessions Judge to decide whether the case is clear enough to need no confirmation. And shall not be executed unless confirmed, which is the operative prohibition.

Section 408: further inquiry and additional evidence

Sub-section (1). If, when the proceedings are submitted, the High Court thinks that a further inquiry should be made into, or additional evidence taken upon, any point bearing upon the guilt or innocence of the convicted person, it may make the inquiry or take the evidence itself, or direct the Court of Session to do so.