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Justice Joymalya Bagchi formerly serving as Judge of Calcutta High Court was appointed to the Supreme Court on 10 March 2025 and is in line to become the Chief Justice of India in 2031.
The Supreme Court declined to reconsider the constitutional validity of hanging as the method of execution for death sentences in India. The
A three-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court in Deena v. Union of India, (1983) 4 SCC 645, specifically analysed and evaluated comparative merits of different methods of execution of death sentence and upheld the constitutional validity of hanging as mode of execution of death penalty.
The High Court examined whether reliance on CA reports, without summoning the scientific experts, affected the fairness of the trial in a case involving allegations of aggravated sexual assault and homicide
Justice Joymalya Bagchi formerly serving as Judge of Calcutta High Court was appointed to the Supreme Court on 10-3-2025 and is in line to become the CJI in 2031.
In a significant decision, a 3-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court explored the contours of Article 32 of the Constitution to answer whether death sentence which has attained finality, can be revisited at all?
The case involved commission of serious offences which led to the sentence of death penalty. However, the Supreme Court took strict note of the faulty investigation and faulty treatment of the DNA evidence that rendered the samples useless.
“When an appeal against conviction is preferred before the High Court, at the earliest stage, the High Court must examine whether there is a proper statement of the accused recorded under Section 313 of CrPC (Section 351 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023).”
Justice Joymalya Bagchi formerly serving as Judge of Calcutta High Court was appointed to the Supreme Court on 10-3-2025 and is in line to become the CJI in 2031.
“The crime committed by the convict was diabolic in character. He enticed the innocent child by tempting him with ice-cream and brutally sodomized and murdered the four-year old. The appellant also mercilessly strangulated the deceased. The post-mortem report clearly indicated that death was due to asphyxia by throttling”.
“Article 21 of the Constitution does not end with the pronouncement of the sentence but extends to the execution stage of that sentence. An inordinate delay in the execution of the sentence of death has a dehumanising effect on the accused. An inordinate delay caused by circumstances beyond the prisoners’ control mandates the commutation of a death sentence.”
The accused was arrested in 2012 on the suspicion of murdering his wife, mother and 2-year-old daughter. In 2016, the Trial Court convicted him and imposed death penalty which was confirmed by Bombay High Court
The Court affirmed the father’s conviction but converted the death penalty to 20 years’ rigorous imprisonment without remission considering several mitigating factors favouring the accused.
Justice Ritu Bahri who retires on 10-10-2024, made history as upon her elevation on 04-02-2024, she became the first woman Chief Justice of Uttaranchal High Court.
The Trial Court has not recorded any finding as to how the present case is ‘rarest of the rare case’ even though the accused has committed the gravest offence.
The present case is the most brutal, barbaric, and gruesome murder of a 60-year-old mother by her son on 28-08-2017 at Makadwala Vasahat, Kolhapur, where her body parts, i.e., liver, intestine, heart, rib and breast were eviscerated outside
The High Court stated that the convict had taken innocent lives in an extremely barbaric, criminal, and heartless manner. His acts have shocked not only the judicial conscience but also the conscience of society.
“Respondent has used utter derogatory language for the Single Judge bench to the extent of saying that the Single Judge is a ‘thief’ and he has full proof of the same.”
Calcutta High Court held that the proximity between the last seen circumstance and the recovery of the victim’s body established a livelink between their presence and the rape and murder.
“It is just not enough for the court to say that the dying declaration is reliable, as the accused is named in the dying declaration as the assailant.”