Overview
- The Square Circle Clinic at NALSAR reports 1,310 death sentences by sessions courts from 2016 to 2025, including 128 in 2025.
- High Courts decided 842 death penalty appeals over the decade but confirmed only 70, with most outcomes being acquittals or commutations.
- In 2025 the Supreme Court acquitted 10 people previously on death row and confirmed zero death sentences for the third consecutive year.
- Sessions courts failed to comply with the Supreme Court’s 2022 sentencing requirements in about 95% of 2025 cases, often conducting sentencing within days of conviction.
- India ended 2025 with 574 people on death row, while appellate courts increasingly substitute death sentences with long fixed terms or whole-life imprisonment without remission.