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In Prajeet Kumar Singh v. State of Bihar [2008 (4) SCALE 442] the accused had murdered the children of the family where he had been staying as a tenant for the past four years, while they were sleeping. He thereafter proceeded to attack the adult members of the family who on hearing the screams of their children had come to their rescue. The court noting the brutality of manner of the attack considered it a fit case for the imposition of death sentence.

In Mohan Anna Chavan (supra) the court upheld the death sentence imposed on a serial rapist. The accused had already been convicted twice for the raping a minor girl, but on the first occasion he was awarded a sentence only of two years and on the second, sentence of ten years rigorous imprisonment only. When the accused was convicted of raping and murdering two minor girls again, the court refused to interfere with the death sentence awarded by the lower courts.

In State of U.P. v. Sattan, [ 2009 (3) SCALE 394 ], six members of a family were murdered by the accused leaving only three survivors over some personal enmity. The trial court awarded them death sentence. The High Court commuted the sentence to one of life imprisonment. The Supreme Court in appeal noting the brutality of murder held that the accused deserved only a death penalty.

3(C). Cases Where Death Penalty was not Awarded/ Affirmed In Ujjagar Singh v. State of Punjab, [2007 (14) SCALE 428] the accused had been convicted of murder and rape and accordingly sentenced to death by the lower courts. This Court in appeal, acquitting the accused only of the charge of rape because of the lack of evidence, noted that since the charge of rape formed a substantial portion of reasoning for causing the death, the death sentence on the accused could no longer be sustained, once he was acquitted on that charge. The sentence was accordingly altered to one of life imprisonment.