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India retained the death penalty when the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 and the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 replaced the IPC and CrPC on 1 July 2024. This paper asks whether that choice rests on a fresh examination of the penalty’s legal, ethical and empirical foundations, or simply on continuity. Using a doctrinal and analytical method, it studies the judiciary’s role from Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab to Manoj v. State of Madhya Pradesh, the evidence on deterrence, and the penalty’s compatibility with Article 21 and international human rights standards. Data from the Square Circle Clinic show that trial courts imposed 128 death sentences in 2025, while the High Courts confirmed only 8.31 per cent of those they decided over a decade and the Supreme Court confirmed none in 2023–2025. The recent Hoshiarpur case of State v. Nanke Yadav alias Radhe Sham (2026) illustrates these issues at trial level. The paper finds no reliable evidence of superior deterrence, identifies continuing concerns of discretion, disparity and irreversibility, concludes that the hypothesis stands with the paper, and recommends reform.
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Ritu et al. (2026) studied this question.
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