New Delhi: Sessions courts in India handed death sentences to 1,279 individuals between 2016 and 2025, a study by criminal reforms advocacy group The Square Circle Clinic revealed on Wednesday.
The total number of death penalties awarded was 1,310, indicating that some individuals received multiple sentences over the years. However, only 70 of these sentences were confirmed by High Courts, a figure the advocacy group described as “staggeringly low.”
By the end of 2025, 574 individuals were on death row in India, the highest since 2016, when the number stood at 400.
In 2025 alone, sessions courts sentenced 128 individuals to death in 94 cases. While High Courts overturned more than 25% of death sentences they reviewed that year, the Supreme Court acquitted the accused in over half of the cases it heard. Notably, for the third consecutive year, the Supreme Court did not confirm any death sentences.
“The low rates of confirmation over the past 10 years reflect the appellate judiciary’s concerns with the system’s failure to adhere to due process guarantees and coincide with the Supreme Court’s increased scrutiny of sentencing-stage safeguards,” the study stated. It added that “wrongful, erroneous, or unjustified convictions” cannot be dismissed as isolated incidents.
Between 2016 and 2025, the President rejected 19 mercy petitions and accepted five.
As of December 31, 2025, 312 cases involving 478 individuals were pending before High Courts. The average duration between a sessions court sentencing and High Court hearing was 2.99 years (nearly 36 months). The Jammu and Kashmir High Court recorded the longest average pendency at 11.53 years (more than 138 months), while the Allahabad High Court had the highest number of pending death penalty cases (91) at the end of 2025.
The study also highlighted the growing use of life imprisonment without remission, describing it as a “worryingly unregulated area of law” in need of a framework to prevent arbitrariness. It cautioned that while higher courts have reduced the use of the death penalty, life imprisonment should not be seen as a safer or lenient alternative, as it “takes away from a person an important essence of life – hope.”
A 2015 Law Commission report had recommended the abolition of the death penalty, except in cases of terrorism and waging war, urging India to move towards complete abolition. Despite this, India remains one of 55 countries that retain the death penalty for ordinary crimes, according to Amnesty International’s 2023 data.