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1 - 10 of 16 (0.22 seconds)Section 32 in The Indian Evidence Act, 1872 [Entire Act]
Section 392 in The Indian Penal Code, 1860 [Entire Act]
Section 307 in The Indian Penal Code, 1860 [Entire Act]
Sheikh Ishaque And Ors vs State Of Bihar on 10 March, 1995
The three circumstances advanced by the learned counsel are too Slender for
treating them as mitigating circumstances. Even if we assume that such
circumstances have any mitigative overtone they have been totally eclipsed
by the other pillowing aggravative features looming large in the pizarre
scenario of the crime unfurled in the evidence. Learned counsel tried
repeatedly to strike a note of caution to us that the number of victims may
not prejudicially influence our judicial perspective in awarding sentence
of death. True, number of victims by itself is not a yardstick to discern a
ease of the category described by the Constitution Bench in Bachan Singh's
case (supra). Nonetheless number of victims is not altogether outside the
scope of consideration and should not be marginalised in appropriate cases,
(vide Sheikh Ishaque & Ors. v. State of Bihar, {1995] 3 SCC 392.)
Bearing in mind the principles governing the sentencing policy,
particularly the death sentence, we have considered the overall picture in
this case. We have no doubt that this is one of the rarest of the rare
cases not merely because of the record number of innocent human beings
roasted alive by the appellants but by the inhuman manner in which they
have plotted the scheme and executed it. What they needed, perhaps, was
only wealth by plundering others. For that motive they designed a scheme
with the highest proportion of viciousness. Carrying most inflammable
liquid in a cane together with a match box they checked into a passenger
bus during the dawn of the ill-dated day. None of the harmless faces of the
unfortunate passengers not even those of some cute children in the bus, had
deterred these appellants from incendiaring them into charred corpses in a
split second. When human mind was allowed to be transformed itself into
such demonic form and the planned pogrom was executed with extreme
pedravity, we have no hesitation to agree with the courts below that this
is one of the rarest of the rare cases in which alternative option is
unquestionably foreclosed.