After recording a judgement that an accused is guilty of murder, a judge has to undertake a further step of deciding which punishment is to give be given... Life Imprisionnent or Death Sentence..?
Judge is required by law to pass one of these two punishments.
Judge is required to adjourn case for at least one day, and then to hear arguments on how much punishment is to be given..
Public prosecutor can argue that Death Sentence should be given.
Defence counsel can argue that this is not the rarest of rare case and therefore no Death Sentence should be given.
In many cases( In Acquittal Appeal hearings), sometimes, it is seen that after convicting, Judges avoid above hearing by saying "Since we awarding minimum punishment of Life Imprisionment, there is no need to hear accused on quantum of punishment"
Above reasoning, deprives Public Prosecutor to argue that "This is a rarest of rare case and therefore death sentence should be given".
I have not come across any provision or reasoning in law which allows a judge to dispense with hearing regarding sentencing of a murder convict. However, it may be possible that such hearing may have been avoided to avoid technicalities.
Haresh Raichura
09/07/2014
