The ‘Rarest Of Rare’ Doctrine: A Critical Appraisal Of Its Consistency And Judicial Application

Death penalty is one of the most controversial issues of criminal law.In India it has been held to be constitutionally valid, but restricted under a judicially created set of infrequently and highly rare standards.This is one of the strategies that had been established by the Supreme Court in the case of Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab (1980) tries to limit death penalty in such extreme cases where it is apparent that no life imprisonment exists.It is intended to serve as a safeguard in the face of arbitrary sentence but its application over the years has revealed inconsistency, judicial subjectivity and incompetence to utilize homogenous standards.The paper is a critical analysis of the origin, development and practical application of the rarest of rare doctrines.It assesses whether the theory has served its original objective of offering principled sentencing or it has presented confusion and ambiguity in death sentence.The article opines that despite the efforts of the judiciary to promote the theory, there are no definite sentencing rules and application of subjective judgment of the judges, which has resulted in contradictory conclusions.