As many as 165 prisoners were reportedly sentenced to death in 2022, the highest yearly rise in two decades. The number of prisoners on death row also increased sharply from 490 in 2021 to 539 om 2022, according to the Annual Death Penalty Report, 2022.
The report was published by Project 39A, an advocacy group associated with the National Law University in Delhi.
According to the report, a little over 98.3% of the death penalty cases were decided by trial courts. While High Courts across the country decided 68 matters, the Supreme Court decided 11 matters.
“The large death row population signals the continued imposition of a high number of death sentences by trial courts with a low rate of disposal by appellate courts,” the report says.
The report also states that cases of sexual violence dominated the death penalty imposition, accounting for almost third of the capital punishment cases.
“The shift in cases has been sharply influenced by the extraordinary sentencing of 38 persons to death in Ahmedabad in a single bomb blast case, representing the largest number of persons sentenced to death in a single case since 2016,” the report reads.
According to the report, in 2022, 51 people were sentenced to death by the Gujarat Sessions Court, 32 by the UP Sessions Court and 17 by Jharkhand court. Not a single prisoner was sentenced to death by the Courts of Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur and Telangana. A total of two women were among the 165 prisoners sentenced to death - one in Maharashtra and one in Uttar Pradesh. Both of them were sentenced in murder cases.
The report also says with 539 prisoners on death row at the end of 2022, there was a 40% increase since 2015 adding the highest number of prisoners on death row state wise include – 100 in Uttar Pradesh, 61 in Gujarat and 46 in Jharkhand.
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