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(iv) A balance sheet of aggravating and mitigating circumstances has to be drawn up and in doing so the mitigating circumstances have to be accorded full weightage and a just balance has to be struck between the aggravating and the mitigating circumstances before the option is exercised."

35. The position was again reiterated in Devender Pal Singh v. State of NCT of Delhi [2002 (5)SCC 234 ] : (SCC p. 271, para 58) "58. From Bachan Singh 's case (supra) and Machhi Singh's case (supra) the principle culled out is that when the collective conscience of the community is so shocked, that it will expect the holders of the judicial power centre to inflict death penalty irrespective of their personal opinion as regards desirability or otherwise of retaining death penalty, the same can be awarded. It was observed:

37. What is culled out from the decisions noted above is that while deciding the question as to whether the extreme penalty of death sentence is to be awarded, a balance sheet of aggravating and mitigating circumstances has to be drawn up.

38. The plea that in a case of circumstantial evidence death should not be awarded is without any logic. If the circumstantial evidence is found to be of unimpeachable character in establishing the guilt of the accused, that forms the foundation for conviction. That has nothing to do with the question of sentence as has been observed by this Court in various cases while awarding death sentence. The mitigating circumstances and the aggravating circumstances have to be balanced. In the balance sheet of such circumstances, the fact that the case rests on circumstantial evidence has no role to play. In fact in most of the cases where death sentence are awarded for rape and murder and the like, there is practically no scope for having an eye witness. They are not committed in the public view. But very nature of things in such cases, the available evidence is circumstantial evidence. If the said evidence has been found to be credible, cogent and trustworthy for the purpose of recording conviction, to treat that evidence as a mitigating circumstance, would amount to consideration of an irrelevant aspect. The plea of learned counsel for the appellant that the conviction is based on circumstantial evidence and, therefore, the death sentence should not be awarded is clearly unsustainable.

(6) That the accused acted under the duress or domination of another person. (7) That the condition of the accused showed that he was mentally defective and that the said defect impaired his capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct."

61. After recording the submissions of the learned counsel, the Court in Paragraph 205 at page 944 of the report accorded its approval to the same by saying that those are "undoubtedly relevant circumstances and must be given great weight in the determination of sentence". Therefore apart from the mitigating circumstances formulated in Ediga Anamma, those suggested by Dr. Chitaley and approved by this Court, unless they overlap, form part of the ratio in Bachan Singh as mitigating circumstances accepted by this Court.

68. In a criminal trial where the prosecution seeks to make out a case for imposition of death sentence, it has to discharge a very heavy and an onerous burden. In such cases, the prosecution must, and I repeat, must discharge this burden by demonstrating the existence of aggravating circumstances and the consequential absence of mitigating circumstances. In discharging such a burden the prosecution must not only prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused has committed the crime but in order to make out a case for death sentence, it also has to prove beyond any reasonable doubt how the crime has been committed and specially the aggravating circumstances which warrant a death penalty. In such exercise by the prosecution, the accused must be given a real and effective chance of rebuttal and to disprove the existence of aggravating circumstance. Therefore apart from his examination under Section 313, the accused must be separately heard on the sentence to be imposed on him where he can demonstrate all the mitigating circumstances. Those must be weighed in the balance and they must receive a liberal and expansive interpretation by Court. In this context the following observations in Bachan Singh (supra) are very pertinent:-