Judgment

KRISHNA IYER, J. (For himself and on behalf of Desai J.) (Majority view):- Death Sentence on death sentence is Parliaments function. Interpretative non-application of death sentence when legislative alternatives exist is within judicial jurisdiction. The onerous option to spare the lives of the appellants to be spent in prison or to hand them over to the hangman to be jettisoned out of terrestrial life into the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns is the crucial function this Court has to exercise in the present appeal.

2. Sir Winston Churchill, in his oftquoted observation, said:

"The mood and temper of the public with regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilization of any country."*1

* 1. Sentencing and Probation, National College of the State Judiciary Reno, Nevada, P. 68.

Without academic aura and maukish sentimentalism the court has to rise to principled pragmatism in the choice of the penal strategy provided by the Penal Code. The level of culture is not an irrelevant factor in the punitive exercise. So we must be forewarned against deeply embedded sadism in some sectors of the community, demandi