Judgment

Banerjee, J.-Leave granted.

2. This appeal by the grant of special leave is directed against the order of confirmation of death sentence by the Division Bench of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Jabalpur. Since the appeal pertains to confirmation of death sentence by the High Court and the submission in support of the appeal is restricted to the question of sentence, it would be convenient to note at this juncture that it is only in the rarest of rare cases that this punishment is to be inflicted and it is on this score that Mr. Muralidhar, the amicus curiae appointed in the matter with the usual ability strongly contended that the punishment awarded by the Sessions Judge and as confirmed by the High Court, runs counter to the basic concept of law and justice of the situation. As a part of the submission, Mr. Muralidhar placed strong reliance on Sections 235(2) and 354(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. But before consideration of the submissions on legal issue as above, it would be convenient to advert to the factual matrix of the matter in issue, in order to assess the situation as to whether the matter in issue in fact falls squarely and evenly on the ca