JUDGMENT

A. K. Patnaik, J.

This is an appeal by way of special leave under Article 136 of the Constitution of India against the judgment and order dated 16.07.2009 of the Patna High Court in Death Reference No. 7 of 2008 with Criminal Appeal (DB) No.169 of 2008. On 18.01.2010, this Court issued notice in the Special Leave Petition confined to the question of sentence only and on 02.08.2010 after hearing learned counsel for the parties, granted leave. Hence, the only question that we have to decide in this appeal is whether the High Court was right in confirming the death sentence of the appellant imposed by the trial court.

2. For deciding this question, the relevant facts as have been found by the trial court are that in the midnight of 14/15.02.2007, the appellant killed his mother by cutting her neck and severing her head and thereafter fled from the house with the head of his mother leaving behind her body. The trial court, after convicting the appellant under Sections 302 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code (for short ‘IPC’), held that the appellant committed the murder of his mother in an extremely brutal, grotesque, diabolical and revolting manner and hence it is one of those r