Judgment

KRISHNA IYER, J. - A death sentence, with all its dreadful scenario of swinging desperately out of the last breath of mortal life, is an excruciating hour for the judges called upon to lend signature to this macabre stroke of the executioners rope. Even so, judges must enforce the laws, whatever they be and decide according to the best of their lights; but the laws are not always just and the lights are not always luminous. Nor, again are judicial methods always adequate to secure justice. We are bound by the Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code, by the very oath of our office.

2. Section 354 (3) of the new Code gives the convicting judge, on a murder charge, a discretion to choose between capital sentence and life term. It is true that in the present Code, the unmistakable shift in legislative emphasis is on life imprisonment for murder as the rule and capital sentence an exception, to be resorted to for reasons to be stated (Ediga Anamma, AIR 1974 SC 799). Even so, the discretion is limited and courts can never afford to forget Benjamin Cardozos wise guidance:

"The judge, even when he is free is still not wholly free. He is not to innovate at pleasure. He is not a kn