Amid rising public outrage over brutal murders, rapes, and other heinous crimes, demands for harsher punishments, particularly the death penalty, have grown louder across the country. However, a recent report by the Square Circle Clinic, a criminal law organisation associated with Hyderabad-based NALSAR University of Law, has raised serious concerns about the reliability of death penalty convictions in India.
The report highlights a disturbing pattern of wrongful or unjustified convictions, pointing to the extremely high rate at which higher courts overturn death sentences awarded by trial courts. Data analysed over 10 years shows that the Supreme Court has not confirmed a single death sentence in recent years, while High Courts have upheld only about 8 per cent of such convictions.
According to the study, trial courts across India awarded death sentences to 1,310 individuals in 822 cases between 2016 and 2025. Of these, High Courts reviewed 842 cases but upheld the death penalty in only 70 cases (8.31 per cent). In contrast, 258 accused persons, nearly 31 per cent, were acquitted by High Courts. The acquittal rate was nearly four times that of confirmed convictions.
The findings further reveal that most death sentences imposed by lower courts fail to withstand judicial scrutiny at the appellate level. Many sentences were either overturned, commuted to life imprisonment, or resulted in complete acquittal.
The Supreme Court’s record during this period was equally striking. Of the 153 death penalty cases it examined over the past decade, the apex court acquitted the accused in 38 cases. Notably, between 2023 and 2025, the Supreme Court did not uphold or award the death penalty in a single case. In 2025 alone, High Courts overturned death sentences in 22 out of 85 cases, while the Supreme Court acquitted more than half of the accused, 10 out of 19 cases, heard that year.
Summarising its conclusions, the report states that at least 364 individuals who were ultimately acquitted should never have been convicted in the first place. It emphasises that these individuals endured severe psychological trauma after being unjustly sentenced to death.
The study notes that wrongful, erroneous, or unfair convictions are not isolated incidents but point to a persistent and systemic problem within India’s criminal justice system. It attributes the low confirmation rate of death sentences to serious deficiencies in investigation and prosecution, as well as growing concerns over due process violations.
The report also observes that the trend aligns with the Supreme Court’s increasing emphasis on procedural safeguards at the sentencing stage, reflecting heightened judicial scrutiny in capital punishment cases.
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Court decisions on the death penalty | Figures |
Total death sentences awarded by the trial courts | 1,310 |
Cases tried by High Courts | 842 |
Death penalty was upheld by the High Courts | 70 |
Cases acquitted by High Courts | 258 |
Death penalty cases decided by the Supreme Court | 38 |
Death sentence upheld by the Supreme Court | 0 |
Note- These figures are from 2015 to 2025.