Supreme Court stays three death sentences, orders full mitigation inquiry

On 13 April 2026, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court stayed a death sentence awarded to three convicts in a case from Dakshina Kannada. A trial court had convicted them and sentenced them to death in October 2024 for rape and murder under the penal code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012. 

A death sentence awarded by a trial court is not executable until it is confirmed by a High Court. On 6 February 2026, a Division Bench of the Karnataka High Court confirmed the trial court’s decision. The Supreme Court left the conviction of the appellants untouched and reopened the sentencing question on two grounds: the High Court loosely engaged with the mitigation question in a single paragraph, and a third form of punishment—viewed as an alternative between ordinary life imprisonment and death penalty—was unconsidered. 

Staying the death sentence, the Supreme Court Bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sandeep Mehta and N.V. Anjaria directed the Karnataka government to file three sets of reports within 16 weeks. A probation-officer’s report on each appellant, a jail-conduct report from Shivamogga Central Jail and a psychological evaluation by a team at the Shivamogga Institute of Medical Sciences. 

It directed that Komal, Mitigation Associate at the Square Circle Clinic, be granted confidential access to the appellants. She was directed to file a Mitigation Investigation Report within 20 weeks. The matter has been listed for hearing  after 20 weeks.

The three appellants

The appellants are Jayban Adivasi, also known as Jay Singh, Mukesh Singh and Manish Thirki, aged 25, 23 and 42 respectively. Jay and Mukesh Singh are from the Panna district in Madhya Pradesh. Thirki hails from Ranchi

All three migrated for work to a tiles factory at Perari, Vamanjoor, near Mangaluru. The crime, which took place at Ulaibettu, drew widespread public attention. 

The High Court’s confirmation record did not contain details of the probation-officer’s report, their school or literacy record, their socio-economic profile, their psychiatric assessment and their jail-conduct certificate from Shivamogga Central Jail—where the three have been lodged since late 2021. 

The High Court’s entire engagement with mitigation occupies paragraph 161 of the judgement: “No doubt, the accused persons are young aged and the same cannot be a ground to come to a conclusion that they could be imprisoned for life and age is not a determinative factor by itself and except this circumstance, there is no other mitigating circumstances.” Paragraph 162 closes: “there are no mitigating circumstances favouring the accused to reduce the sentence.”

The Manoj protocol

In Manoj v State of Madhya Pradesh (2022) the Supreme Court held that the State must produce a probation-officer’s report, a jail-conduct and Prison Report, and a psychiatric and psychological evaluation report. The defence must have full opportunity to place social-history material on record, including family background, educational history, and evidence of illness, disability or trauma. The decision in Manoj was in the backdrop of persistent failures in collecting mitigation material and is applicable to every capital trial. Higher courts reviewing capital confirmations are required to follow the Manoj protocol. 

The Supreme Court has reinforced Manoj repeatedly. For instance, in Vasanta Sampat Dupare v Union of India (2025), the Supreme Court held that Article 32 empowers the Court to reopen the sentencing question if the Manoj protocol is ignored. A Constitution Bench reference in In Re: Framing Guidelines Regarding Potential Mitigating Circumstances is pending on a uniform trial-level framework. The 13 April direction applies the same logic before finality has attached.

The Shraddhananda option

A trial judge has two options at the time of sentencing: ordinary life imprisonment, which can in practice work out to about 14 years of actual incarceration, and death. Union of India v. V. Sriharan (2015), reserved a third option for the High Courts and the Supreme Court to consider: a fixed term of 20, 25, 30 or more years without remission, or natural life without remission. Trial judges who find life imprisonment inadequate slide towards the death penalty. This is the “Sriharan vacuum,” and it explains the low rate at which trial-court death sentences survive on appeal.

High Courts escape that constraint. In Swamy Shraddhananda v State of Karnataka (2008), the Supreme Court formally recognised a “special category of sentence” available as an alternative to death. Justice Aftab Alam, writing for the Bench, held that this power should be applied as a uniform policy “not only by this Court but also by the High Courts, being the superior Courts in their respective States.” A High Court therefore has three options in a death reference: confirmation of death, commutation to ordinary life, or a fixed-term, or natural-life sentence without remission.

The Karnataka High Court did not consider the Shraddhananda option. It leaves unasked whether 25, 30 or 40 years without remission, or natural life, would have answered the gravity of the offence. It moves straight to confirmation of death after a recital of aggravating circumstances, and a single-sentence rejection of age as mitigation.

The reformative line

The relevant precedent applicable to the present case is Mohd. Firoz v. State of Madhya Pradesh (2022). A three-judge bench commuted the death sentence of a man convicted of rape and murder of a four-year-old, after collecting probation, psychiatric and prison-conduct reports. Justice Bela M. Trivedi, who authored the judgement, held that “the maximum punishment prescribed may not always be the determinative factor for repairing the crippled psyche of the offender,” invoking the principle that “every sinner has a future.” The substituted sentence of 20 years’ rigorous imprisonment under Section 376A IPC, alongside life under Section 302, is a textbook Shraddhananda sentence. Lochan Shrivas v State of Chhattisgarh (2021), Bhagchandra v State of Madhya Pradesh (2021) and Mofil Khan v State of Jharkhand (2021) confirm the pattern. As Mofil Khan put it, the State has the burden to demonstrate that reformation is ruled out. The burden went undischarged here.

What will weigh on next hearing 

Four considerations will shape the Supreme Court’s reassessment. Two appellants were in their early-to-mid-twenties at the time of the offence; the third, at 42, is older, and his sentencing may diverge. Youth has counted as a mitigating factor since Bachan Singh v State of Punjab (1980), though by itself it remains short of decisive. Both records are silent on prior antecedents. The migrant tribal background of two appellants brings them within the Firoz, Lochan Shrivas and Bhagchandra line. Jail conduct supplies the fourth datum: the appellants have been in custody for over four years.

A critic may argue that the aggravation enumerated by the Division Bench at paragraph 160 is overwhelming, and that confirmation of the death sentence remains available under Manoharan v State (2019) and Vasanta Sampat Dupare. Aggravation alone leaves the rarest-of-rare test unsatisfied. The mitigating side requires examination on primary materials. Where Shraddhananda offers a middle path that captures the gravity of the crime, confirming death requires to justify that path as insufficient. That reason awaits the record.