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PETITIONER: SHIV MOHAN SINGH

       Vs.

RESPONDENT: STATE (DELHI ADMINISTRATION)

DATE OF JUDGMENT10/03/1977

BENCH: KRISHNAIYER, V.R. BENCH: KRISHNAIYER, V.R. CHANDRACHUD, Y.V.

CITATION:  1977 AIR  949            1977 SCR  (3) 172  1977 SCC  (2) 238  CITATOR INFO :  R          1980 SC 898  (82)

ACT:             Review--Exercise of the powers of Review must be  justi-         fied  by  the  compelling pressure  of  fresh  circumstances         within the limits of law--Supreme Court Rules, 1966 Order XI         -Penal Code (1860) S. 302--Sentence--Validity of death  sen-         tence.             Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (Act II of  1974)--Section         235(2)--Right   to  be  heard  at   the  stage  of   passing         sentence--Considerations in sentencing.

HEADNOTE:             The  petitioner  was convicted u/s 302 I.P.C.  and  sen-         tenced  to death by the. trial court which was confirmed  by         the High Court. The Special Leave application, to this Court         was  dismissed.   A  further petition for  rehearing  and  a         review  petition thereafter having ’been dismissed, a  peti-         tion  for  directions regarding demand of the  case  to  the         court  of Sessions for reconsideration  of the  sentence  in         the  light of s.235(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code  1973,         was made, simultaneously with mercy petitions to the  Presi-         dent.    The mercy petitions to the President and the  peti-         tion  for direction to tiffs Court having been rejected  the         petitioner’s father moved the instant review petition.         Dismissing the petition  the Court.             HELD: (1) This court’s review power has repeatedly  been         invoked  ire  vain and naturally a further exercise  of  the         same  power must be justified by the compelling pressure  of         fresh circumstances within the limits   of   law. Recognised         grounds such as manifest injustice induced by obvious curial         error or oversight or new and important matter not  reasona-         bly within the ken   or reach of the party seeking review on         the  prior  occasion, may warrant  interference  to  further         justice.             (2)  Under the Indian Penal Code death penalty has  been         ruled  to be constitutional.  The law having sanctioned   it         and this Court having refused special leave against  convic-         tion  and  sentence in this very case, it  is  a  vanquished         cause  to  argue for a vague  illegality  vitiating  capital         sentence as such.                                                           [179 D-E]

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           Gregg v. Georoia, U.S. Supreme Court decided on July  2,         1976 held not applicable.             (3) In India under present conditions deterrence through         death  penalty may not be a time-barred punishment  in  some         frightful  areas of barbarous murder.    illustratively  the         court  has mentioned that the brutal features of  the  crime         and  the hapless and helpless state of the victim steel  the         heart of   the law to impose the sterner sentence. [180 A-B]         Ediga  Annamina  v. State of A.P., [1974] 4 S.C.C.  443  ex-         plained.             (4) The law is thus harsh and humane and when faced with         arguments  about the social invalidity of the death  penalty         the  personal predilections   of the judge must bow  to  the         law.   The Bench with all its will to break through is bound         by  a  jurisdictional servitude.   This fetter  is  that  if         there  is  no legal ground for the  alleged  grievances  the         court cannot grant relief.   The court enters a province  of         "powerless  power"  and finds itself in a  quandary  between         codified law and progressive thought.   The latter  beckons,         but the former binds [180 B, 177 F-G]             (5) Hearing is obligatory at the sentencing stage  under         the new Criminal Procedure Code.   The humanist principle of         individualising  punishment to suit the person and his  cir-         cumstances is best served by hearing the culprit even on the         nature and quantum of the penalty to be imposed. [180 F]         173             (6) The heinousness of the crime is a relevant factor in         the choice of the sentence.  The circumstances of the crime,         especially social pressures which induce the crime which may         be epitomised as "a just sentence in an unjust society"  are         another  considerations. The criminal. not the  crime.  must         figure prominently in shaping the sentence where a reform of         the individual, rehabilitation into society and other  meas-         ures  to  prevent recurrence, are weighty  factors.   Sombre         sentencing  is  the  Fifth Act in the tragedy  of  a  murder         trial  and  for the judges of the Supreme Court,  assumes  a         grim  seriousness   and poignant gravity.   The  Penal  Code         does  not give the judge a free hand where murder  has  been         made out.   The choice is painfully--not quite scientifical-         ly though--limited to but two alternatives. [173 F, 180 A-C]             Observation: [Sentencing under the Indian scheme is  not         yet realistically forward looking nor correctionally  flexi-         ble, but Parliament in its wisdom may examine this inadequa-         cy].

JUDGMENT:             CRIMINAL  APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Review Petition No.  2         of 1977.             (Petition  for review of this Court’s order dated  22-9-         1976 in Crl. M.P. Nos. 1567, 1600-1601/76).         Sital A.K. Dhar, for the petitioner.         R.N. Sachthey, for the respondent.         The Judgment of the Court was delivered by             KRISHNA  IYER, J.--If ’survival after death’  may  aptly         describe  any  litigative phenomenon,   the  present  review         proceeding   may  well qualify for that quaint  claim.   The         relief  of review relates to the death penalty imposed  upon         the petitioner by the trial court, confirmed  in appeal, and         dismissed even at the stage of special leave by this  Court.         In  the  ordinary course, judicial finality, has  thus  been         affixed  on the capital sentence so awarded although  Presi-         dential  clemency, which has been sought and negatived,  may         still be open under Article 72 of Constitution.  Mercy, like

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       divinity,  is  amenable  to unending exercise  but  in  this         mundane  matter it is for the Head of State to act  and  not         for the apex Court.             Sombre  sentencing is the Fifth Act in the tragedy of  a         murder  trial  and,  for the Judges of  the  Supreme  Court,         assumes  a grim seriousness and poignant gravity  since  the         petitioner’s  final  appeal for   judicial  commutation,  if         rejected,  may perhaps prove imminently fatal to  his  life.         Even  so,  vhen we chronicle the events connected  with  the         judicial proceedings in this Court it will be realised  that         our  review power has repeatedly been invoked in  vain’  and         naturally  a  further  exercise of the same  power  must  be         justified by the compelling pressure  o[ fresh circumstances         within  the limits of the law.  The nature of  the  judicial         process,  even  at the tallest tower, is such that,  to  use         Gardozo’s  elegant  expressions, ’a judge even  when  he  is         free,  is  still not wholly free; he is not to  innovate  at         pleasure;  he  is not a knight-errant, roaming  at  will  in         pursuit of his own ideal of beauty of of goodness; he is  to         draw  inspiration  from consecrated principles’.  Where  the         Judge’s  values and those prevailing in society clash,   the         judge  must,  in theory give way to the ’objective right’.         174             The  focus,  therefore; must turn on  the  existence  of         grounds   of manifest miscarriage of justice unavailable  on         the earlier occasions. Before that, a brief reference may be         made to the ’criminal’ facts.             A  treacherous  murder  of a tender  school-boy  by  the         petitioner, the circumstances of which were so heartless and         heinous,  terminated  condiguly at the trial court  and  the         High  Court, the extreme penalty having been visited on  the         offender  for  his horrendous killing.  This  Court  refused         special  leave to appeal, drawing the dark curtain’  on  the         criminal proceedings.  The petitioner struggled to extricate         himself  from  the executioner by a  sequence  of  desperate         steps.  On  his behalf, a motion for re-hearing the  special         leave petition was fruitlessly made to this Court.  A review         petition was made again to this Court in vain.  Yet another,         out  of the same motive but with modified reliefs, was  made         and dismissed.  Then followed an application for  directions         regarding  remand of the case to the court of  sessions  for         reconsideration of the sentence in the light of s. 235(3) of         the  Code  of Criminal Procedure, 1973.  Dismissal  of  this         proceeding  did not deter the petitioner from persisting  in         moving   this Court.  That  is how the present review  peti-         tion has been put in on his behalf by his father.             Mercy  petitions to the President punctuated  the  court         proceedings  but  they too were turned down.   The  convict,         nevertheless, clung on and. as stated earlier, his  pathetic         persistence  in  the plea for commutation has  been  pressed         before  us  by counsel on two scores.  He has urged  that  a         decision of this Court in Santa Singh v. State of  Punjab(1)         of  which he was not aware at the earlier  stages  entitles.         him  to a remand to the Sessions Court for   reconsideration         of   the sentence of death.  Secondly, he has  also  pressed         upon  us  personal and social circumstances which  have  re-         ceived judicial approval as justifying the imposition of the         lesser sentence of life imprisonment even where the  offence         of murder has been made out.             In the ordinary course, the supplicant’s forensic battle         for life must be repelled by us since this Court has refused         leave, rejected review petitions and denied reconsideration.         Even so, realising that by this prolonging proceeding he  is         longing for dear life and clutching at legal straws, we have         desisted from a dramatic rejection of the petition outright,

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       anxious to set if there be some tenable ground which reason-         ably  warrants  judicial interdicts to  halt  the  hangman’s         halter.   We  were  willing to  strain,  within  permissible         limits, to blend leniency with legality.  ’The last  breath’         is the last hold of the law on the living to do justice  and         at  that point judges, while hating the crime, do  not  hate         the  man who committed it, such being the humanism of  penal         justice.  Circuit Judge Christmas Humphreys told the  B.B.C.         Reporter recently that a judge looks "at the man in the dock         in a different way, not just a criminal to be punished,  but         a  fellow  human being, another form of life who is  also  a         form  of the same one life as oneself".  In the  context  of         Karuna and punishment for Karma the same Judge said:         (1) Criminal Appeal No. 230 of 1976 decided on 17-8-76.                       175                             "The two things  are  not  incompatible.                       You   do punish him for what he did,  but  you                       bring in a quality of what is sometimes called                       mercy,  rather than an emotional hate  against                       the man for doing something harmful.  You feel                       with him; that is what compassion means."                        (The Listener, d/25.11.1976, P. 692)         But  if  the harsh frontiers’ of the  criminal  are  clearly         drawn, to travel beyond is out of bounds for the court.             The  focus of counsel’s first submission was  turned  on         the compassion of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1972 which         obligates the court, under section 235, to hear the  convict         on  the  question of sentence.  The  provision  is  salutary         although its application to the present case is moot, in the         light  of.  section  484 of the Code.   Without  pausing  to         decide whether the new Code applies, we have extended to the         petitioners  the  benefit  of the  benignant  provision  and         allowed  his counsel to present the circumstances he  relies         on to activate our commiserative jurisdiction.             It  is true that the New Code provides  many  additional         facilities for persons accused of crime., the paramount idea         being to avoid an innocent man being mistakenly found guilty         or  punished disproportionately.  In the present  case,  the         conviction  has become conclusive and only the  question  of         sentence  is  being argued  for  extenuating  consideration.         Even so, sometimes one is led to wonder whether the words of         Learned  Hand have some relevance to the Indian system.  The         learned Judge said of the American system:                             "Under   our  criminal  Procedure,   the                       accused has every advantage.  While the prose-                       cution  is  held rigidly to  the  charge,  the                       accused  need not disclose the barest  outline                       of his defence.  He is immune from questioning                       or  comment on his silence; he cannot be  con-                       victed  when there is the least fair doubt  in                       the  minds  of anyone of the  12  Jurers.  Our                       procedure has always been haunted by the ghost                       of  the  innocent  man convicted.   It  is  an                       unreal  dream.   What we need to fear  is  the                       archaic formalism  and  the  watery  sentiment                       that obstructs, delays and defeats the  prose-                       cution of crime".             We  advert to this aspect only to emphasize a  sense  of         perspective  in the judiciary when applying  the  protective         procedural  provisions  of the Code.  Sentencing  under  the         Indian scheme, is not yet realistically forward-looking  nor         correctionally  flexible but Parliament in its  wisdom,  may         examine this inadequacy.             The  penalty  of  death is an  irrevocable  process  and         naturally our pensive thought was turned to the  moral-jural

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       aspects of the utility and futility of this deadly  sanction         of  State  against citizen of hanging a human being  into  a         cold  oadaver.  The miscellany of ideological  sociological-         jural considerations, although not pertinent within the         176         narrow  horizon  of a court of law, has  a  fascinating  and         portentous  significance when we remind ourselves  that  the         Supreme Court goes beyond chopping little law into  spacious         jurisprudence  on  great  occasions and our  Penal  Code  is         itself under review before Parliament.              This prolegomenon to the principles of capital sentence         is   our  alibi for a brief divagation into  the  basics  of         infliction  of death as a weapon of extinction society  uses         against  its terribly deviant members as beyond  deterrence.         Is  the  death penalty a  purposeful  punitive  strategy  or         legitimate  legal weapon, viewed against the advanced  peno-         logical goals of reformation, deterrence and social  defence         ?  Why   is  death terrifying and what are  the  objects  of         punishment served by its infliction ?             The literature on doing justice at the sentencing  stage         is profound and proliferating and penological controversy on         death penalty has led to a Great Divide among  sociologists,         jurists  and  spiritualists.  To go  eggregiously  wrong  on         punishment is to commit the crime’ of sentence and, natural-         ly,  since taking the life of the prisoner neither  prevents         him nor reforms him (for he is no more), theories supporting         capital  punishment  prove  self-defeating.   Moreover,  the         irreversible step of extinguishing the offender’s life leave         society with no opportunity to retrieve him if ’the’ convic-         tion and punishment be found later to be rounded on flawsome         evidence’  or  the sentence is discovered to be  induced  by         some  phoney  aggravation, except the  poor  consolation  of         posthumous  rehabilitation as has been done in a  few  other         countries  for  which there is no procedure in  our  system.         May  be, these are campaign points of abolitionists  against         capital sentence.             Envisioned  from another fundamentally different  angle,         is  the dread of death penalty a deterrant ? Socrates  would         not  recant,  Jesus  would not plead,  St.  Joan  would  not         deny--with  the  cup  of poison,  bleeding  crucifixion  and         burning  stakes  starting them in the face   as  punishment.         Why,  Higher  Truth,  acting through  its  inspired  agents,         taunts  human law; for, then the body’gives little  purchase         over   the  soul, as Gandhiji demonstrated  by  defiance  of         British-Indian ’justice’. And, more dramatically yet  dimly,         psychic, electronic and medical explorations, scientifically         conducted,  are  reportedly  revealing  through  fascinating         flashes  of  research and recording  and  extraordinary  but         tested  investigations  into  rebirth, that  death  is  only         discarnation,  not utter dissolution, that after ’death’  we         survive  and  act  in a demonstrable,  subtle  dimension  of         existence.  No longer is this thesis projected as faith  but         sought to be proved as fact.  If, in the not distant future,         the greatest of all man’s fears--fear of death--is dispelled         by the finding of poetic science proving that you live after         ’death’  and  can communicate with the  ’living’,  that  the         confusion  between discarnation and death can be  scientifi-         cally explored and cleared, a revolution in the  penological         programmes of society would have dawned.   The  trans-physi-         cal human future, as sciences unravel, may make our  current         penal  strategies obsolescent.  At Court,  current  criminal         law binds us willy-nilly and we have to abandon the  subject         suggestively.             The  basic  issue  ’What  is death  ?’,  may  engage  us         psycho-criminologically, although a wee-bit digressively for

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       a moment, to assess the         177         social impact of the death penalty.  By and large, humankind         holds fast to the belief that death is a total extinction of         dear-  life and views its arrival through the  executioner’s         rope or electric chair or firing squad with awesome  horror.         With  poetic pragmatism, Shakespeare expressed  this  common         feeling when he referred, in the context  of death, to ’that         undiscovered country from whose journ no traveller returns’.         There are others, however--and among them are ancient seers,         modern divines and several psychic researchers in institutes         who  regard as super-senSory.  Reality or scientific  verity         that there is life after life, that the phenonmenon of death         may  even have a liberating effect, that the grosset  exist-         ence is in corporeal life and the subtler in the incorporeal         state and life-death  life is a continuum.  Our sages assert         with vision that deathbound littleness iS not all we are and         great  death as integral to the life process.   Many  scien-         tists are investigating what happens after death and lifting         the  dark veil with luminous evidence of  ethenic  survival.         Even so, most men  even pious ones--are earthy materialists,         and,  in our work-a-day world, take it an axiom that  it  is         given to us to live but once.  The law, a people’s practical         scheme,  which  operates on the  behavioral   patterns   and         psyche  of  the  humdrum run of  mortals,  steers  clear  of         super-scientific and mystic may be and grounds itself on the         hard-headed realist’s view that the sentence of death is the         maximum  punishment as it puts the criminal out of  material         existence.  Indeed, it is a fiercely final step for  mortals         and,  in  a sense, abhorrent because survival  after  death,         though  slowly,  murkily, falteringly,  gaining  scientific,         ground,  is still suspect and has not made headway into  the         thoughtways of jurisprudes and legislators, rationalists and         practical people.  If  after-life and re-birth are verities,         as  many poetic scientists claim to prove beyond  easy  dis-         missal both penology and criminology will  undergo re-evalu-         ation.  For, as punishment ’death penalty’ will cease  to be         terrible  and criminologyically, crime will  be  inescapably         punished’in  this  life or on  re-birth,   These  futuristic         projections are of no practical consequence now.   Jurispru-         dence  has to react to  and build upon  established  belief-         systems,   branches  of  human  knowledge   and   behavioral         sciences.             But  these  problems are more  Tomorrow’s  challenge  to         philosophers,  spiritualists, social and mental  scientists,         fundamental thinkers, parliamentarians and penal  reformers.         The Bench, with all its will to break-through, is bound by a         jurisdictional  servitude.  This fetter is, as  stressed  by         Government counsel, that if there is no legal ground for the         alleged grievance, the Court cannot grant relief.  The Court         enters a province of ’powerless power’ and finds itself in a         quandary between codified law and progressive thought.   The         latter  beckons, but the former binds.             We  divagated  into the import and portent of  life  and         after-life  on capital sentence not because  these  distant,         dubious searches have immediate legal standing but merely to         show how we may be swept off our feet if we chase ’tomorrow’         theories,  especially since law  in court is  hard  realism.         To-day  for the condemned prisoner, the day of execution  is         the  dreadful last day of life.  Even so, critics like  Bec-         caria have said ’the death penalty cannot be useful, because         of         178         the example of barbarity it gives men  ....  It seems to  me         absurd that laws which are an expression of the public will,

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       which  detest and punish homicide, should themselves  commit         it’.   On  the  other hand, the  deterrent  and  retributive         theorists  prevail amongst penologists and lextalionis  con-         tinues in sublimated form Orthodox  jurists  have shared the         view  of Genesis 9:6: "Whosoever sheddeth a man’s blood,  so         shall  his  blood be shed."  To epitomize, in  this  blurred         area  of criminal jurisprudence we are lost in the  conflict         between  ideals,  theories  and research  findings  and  the         subject  remains so fluid that  legislative  decision-making         and  jurisprudential  debate must crystallize  into  a  Code         before  the Court can activise these norms   or  incorporate         them as judge-made law.            The  plea  of counsel against death penalty  has  topical         favour  and echoes the recent American debate.  To  abbrevi-         ate.the  discussion, We content ourselves with adverting  to         the  judicial  division of opinion in the Supreme  Court  of         U.S.A. in Gregg v. Georgia (decided on July2, 1976)  wherein         Mr.  Justice Brennan, in his dissenting Judgment,drove  home         his point thus:                         "I  emphasize only that foremost among   the                       moral  concepts’ recognized in our  cases  and                       inherent  in the clause is the  primary  moral                       principle that the state,  even as  it punish-                       es,  must treat its citizens in a manner  con-                       sistent  with their intrinsic worth  as  human                       beings  a punishment must not be so severe  as                       to be degrading to human dignity.   A judicial                       determination   whether  the   punishment   of                       death comports with human dignity is therefore                       not  only  permitted  but  compelled  by   the                       clause.                                 Death  is  not  only  an   unusually                       severe punishment, unusual in its pain, in its                       finality,  and in its enormity, but it  serves                       no penal purpose more effectively than a  less                       severe  punishment;  therefore  the  principle                       inherent  in the clause that prohibits  point-                       less  infliction of excessive punishment  when                       less severe punishment can adequately  achieve                       the same purposes invalidates the punishment."         Mr. Justice Marshall added the weight of his opinion:                         "The  two  purposes that sustain  the  death                       penalty  as non-excessive in the court’s  view                       are general deterrence and retribution.                         The Enrlich study, in short,  is of  little,                       if  any assistance in assessing the  deterrent                       impact  of the death penalty. The  evidence  I                       reviewed in  Furman remains  convincing in  my                       view,  that ’capital punishment is not  neces-                       sary  as a deterrent to crime in our  society.                       The justification for the  death penalty  must                       be found elsewhere.                            The  other principal purpose said  to  be                       served  by the death penalty  is  retribution.                       The  notion  that retribution can serve  as  a                       moral justification for the sanction of  death                       finds  credence in the opinion of my  brothers                       Stewart, Powell,                       179                       and  Stevens, and that of my brother White  in                       Roberts v. Louisians. It is thin notion that I                       find  to be the most disturbing aspect of  to-                       day’s unfortunate decision.                              The foregoing contentions--that  socie-                       ty’s  expression of moral outrage through  the

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                     imposition  of the death penalty preempts  the                       citizenry  from  taking the law into  its  own                       hands  and  reinforces moral  values--are  not                       retributive’  in the purest sense.   They  are                       essentially utilitarian in  that they  portray                       the death penalty as valuable because of   its                       beneficial results.  These justifications  for                       the  death penalty are inadequate because  the                       penalty  is, quite clearly I think not  neces-                       sary to the accomplishment of those results.                              There remains for consideration, howev-                       er,  what might be termed the purely  retribu-                       tive    justification    for    .the     death                       penalty--that  the death penalty is  appropri-                       ate,  not because of its beneficial effect  on                       Society, but because the taking of the murder-                       er’s life is itself morally good.  Some of the                       language  of the plurality’s  opinion  appears                       positively to embrace this notion of  retribu-                       tion  for its own sake as a justification  for                       capital punishment."                       These American views of eminent judges deserve                       deferential  notice but do not aid us  in  the                       decision  of this Indian Appeal which  relates                       to  implementation of a valid sentence  since,                       under the Indian Code, death penalty. has been                       ruled  to be constitutional.  The  law  having                       sanctioned  it and this Court  haying  refused                       special leave against conviction and sentence.                       in this very case, it is a vanquished cause to                       argue for a vague illegality vitiating capital                       sentence as such. To that extent the pall must                       fall.                       Counsel  for  the petitioner  brought  to  our                       notice  a number of recent decisions  of  this                       Court  where judges have expressed  themselves                       in favour of a sentencing policy of life  term                       as  against  death penalty. In  Ediga  Annamma                       (1974  (4) SCC 443) the Court pointed  to  the                       retreat  of death penalty as part of  punitive                       strategy  in  many  countries  of  the  world.                       Counsel  cited rulings of this Court  to  show                       that  where the murderer too young or too  old                       or  the  haunting horror of being  hanged  has                       been hovering over his head for a few years or                       the  condemned  prisoner is  the  sole  bread-                       winner  of the whole family, the  lesser  sen-                       tence  of  life  imprisonment  should  be  the                       judicial choice. He brought to our notice  the                       social  and  personal  circumstances  in   the                       present  case relevant to the above  approach.                       Undoubtedly,   the  prisoner was a  young  man                       around  21/22  years  when  he  committ‘d  the                       crime.  He claims that his young wife will  be                       helpless, that upon him depends the family for                       livelihood, that his mother is blind, that all                       of  them will have a miserable, indigent  life                       If,  the  petitioner were to  be  extinguished                       from  earthly existence.  He  also  emphasised                       that since 1974 the sentence of death had been                       shattering  his morale.  It must, however,  be                       pointed out that counsel for the State refuted                       some  of the more important of  these  grounds                       and  went to the extent of even  stating  that                       the petitioner’s wife had remarried.

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                     180             In  Ediga Annamma this Court, while noticing the  social         and personal circumstances possessing an extenuating impact,         has equally clearly highlighted that in India under  present         conditions  deterrence through death penalty  may not  be  a         time-barred punishment in some frightful areas of  barbarous         murder.  Illustratively, the  Court  has mentioned that  the         brutal  features of the crime and the hapless  and  helpless         state of the victim steel the heart of the law to impose the         sterner sentence.             The  law  is thus harsh and humane and when  faced  with         arguments  about the social invalidity of the death  penalty         the personal predilections of the Judge must bow to the  law         as  by  this  Court declared, adopting the  noble  words  of         Justice  Stenley Mosk of California uttered in a death  sen-         tence  case: "As Judge, I am bound  to the law as I find  it         to be and not as fervently wish it to be".            (The Yale Law Journal No. 6, p. 1138).          A learned writer on the Indian Constitution has observed :-                              "  ....  judges must  enforce the laws,                       whatever they be, and decide according to  the                       best  of  their lights; but the laws  are  not                       always  just,  and the lights are  not  always                       luminous.   Nor,  again are  judicial  methods                       always adequate  to secure justice."           We have given deep consideration to the many circumstances         pressed  by the petitioner’s counsel to review  our  earlier         orders  dismissing  review  and refusing  special  leave  to         appeal.  While we agree that Judges, like others are  falli-         ble and their findings are not ’untouchably’ sacrosanct,  we         disagree  that on an overall view of the many  circumstances         of  the  crime  and the criminal in the  present  case,  the         sentence of death should be departed from.             Recognized grounds such as manifest injustice induced by         obvious  curial  error or oversight, or  new  and  important         matter .not reasonably within the ken or reach of the  party         seeking review on the prior occasion, may warrant  interfer-         ence,  to further justice.  The scenario of events  in  this         case  rules out the arguments urged by counsel.  Hearing  is         obligatory  at the sentencing stage under the  New  Criminal         Procedure  Code.  The humanist principle of  individualising         punishment to suit the person and his circumstances is  best         served  by  hearing is obligatory at  the  sentencing  stage         under  the New Criminal imposed.  In the present  case,  the         date  of  commencement  of  the trial ,might  rule  out  the         applicability of the new Code. Moreover, he had already come         to this Court seeking special leave to appeal at a time when         the  new Code was in force.  He did not urge the  ground  of         denial  of opportunity to be heard at the sentencing  stage.         Assuming indulgently in his favour that he came to know  the         correct  law on this branch only after the decision of  this         Court  in Shant Singh (Supra), his earlier  application  for         review  was  disposed of after that ruling was  rendered  by         this Court.  Even then the present grievance of  non-hearing         was  not pressed.  He has missed the bus and his  contention         based  on the new Code is of doubtful substance.   Even  so,         having regard to the compassion that must temper the  rigour         of rigid         181         rules  we  have allowed counsel a fresh opportunity  to  put         forward  before us, after taking instructions from his  cli-         ent, all the circumstances the Court should consider by  way         of ameliorative gesture and reduction of the  death  penalty         to a life term incaraceration. The heinousness of the  crime         is  a  relevant factor in the choice of the  sentence.   The

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       circumstances  of  the crime,  especially  social  pressures         which  induce  the crime which we may epitomise  as  a  just         sentence  in an unjust society’ are  another  consideration.         The  criminal,  not the crime, must  figure  prominently  in         shaping  the  sentence  where a reform  of  the  individual,         rehabilitation  into society and other measures  to  prevent         recurrence,  are weighty factors.  The Penal Code  does  not         give  the Judge a free hand where murder has been made  out.         The   choice   is   painfully--not   quite    scientifically         though--limited  to  but two alternatives.   We  have  given         reasons  why, as the law now stands, we decline to  demolish         the death sentence.  We therefore, dismiss the review  peti-         tion.             The  judicial fate notwithstanding, there are some  cir-         cumstances  suggestive of a claim to Presidential  clemency.         The two jurisdictions are different, although some consider-         ations may overlap.  We particularly mention this because it         may  still  be open to the petitioner to  invoke  the  mercy         power  of the President and his success or failure  in  that         endeavour may decide the arrival or otherwise of his  dooms-         day.  With these observations we leave the  ’death  penalty’         Judicially ’untouched’.         S.R.                           Review petition dismissed.         182