JUDGMENT (COMMON)

Juvvadi Sridevi, J.—Death and if not life, death or life, life and if not death, is the swinging progression of the criminal jurisprudence in India, as far as the capital punishment is concerned. All murders shock the community; but certain murders shock the conscience of the Court as well as the community. The distinguishing aspect of the latter category is that there is shock coupled with extreme revulsion. However, Section 354(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, (for short, ‘Cr.P.C.’) mandates that when the conviction is for an offence punishable with death or, in the alternative, with imprisonment for life or imprisonment for a term of years, the judgment shall state the reasons for the sentence awarded, and, in the case of sentence of death, the special reasons for such sentence. In the words of Justice Krishna Iyer in Ediga Anamma Vs. State of Andhra Pradesh, AIR 1974 SC 799, the unmistakable shift in the legislative emphasis is that life imprisonment for murder is the rule and capital sentence is an exception to be resorted to, for the reasons