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Trial courts across the country continued to impose death penalty in significant numbers in 2025 even as appellate courts set aside or modified most of these sentences, raising “serious concerns about the reliability of convictions in capital cases”, finds an annual study by The Square Circle Clinic — a criminal justice initiative of NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad.From 2016 to 2025, trial courts imposed 1,310 death sentences but high courts confirmed only 106, according to ‘Death Penalty in India: Annual Statistics Report 2025’ released on Feb 4. Of the death sentences confirmed by HCs, Supreme Court decided a little over a half of them and upheld none, shows the report.The data points to a persistent gap between trial court sentencing and appellate outcomes. As of Dec 31 last year, 574 prisoners were on death row which the report described as “the largest number of persons on death row at the end of a calendar year since 2016”.In this backdrop, sessions courts sentenced 128 people to death across 94 cases in 2025, finds the study.In 2025 alone, HCs acquitted, commuted, remanded or recorded abatement in most of the death sentence cases they decided, and SC’s record reflects a similar pattern, shows the report. The study finds that the apex court has not confirmed a single death sentence in 2023-2025, even where HCs had initially upheld them. In 2025 alone, high courts acquitted 35 individuals across 22 cases. SC acquitted accused in more than half the cases it decided, recording the highest number of death row acquittals — 10 persons — in the past decade.“The frequency with which death sentences are overturned at the appellate stage raises serious concerns about the reliability of convictions in capital cases,” the report states.Those acquitted by HCs spent an average of 5.17 years on death row, with several remaining under death sentence for close to two decades before being exonerated.“High rates of acquittals from death row expose a deep fracture in the criminal legal system,” said Shreya Rastogi, director, litigation and forensics at The Square Circle Clinic. “When more than a third of HC confirmation cases result in acquittals, it indicates failures in investigation and prosecution that harm victims and accused alike. These errors cost people decades of their lives and freedom.”The failures identified by the report are spread across the criminal justice process, said Maitreyi Misra, director, research and mitigation, The Square Circle Clinic. “Supreme Court itself has repeatedly pointed out failures at multiple levels — investigation agencies, prosecution and lower courts — while acquitting people on death row,” she said.
