If we look Since 1995, it has been used only four times on Auto Shankar in 1995, Dhananjoy Chatterjee in 2004, Ajmal Kasab in 2012, Afzal Guru in 2013 and Yakub Menon in 2015. Although there are numerous countries that proscribe death sentences, there is no international consensus till date regarding its legality. The Indian legal system too has struggled with the constitutionality of death penalty and the circumstances in which it may be granted. This paper analyses the constitutional validity of death sentence and the circumstances under which it may be granted with the help of relevant cases and the ‘rarest of the rare’ test that was prescribed by Supreme Court in Bachan Singh case.

This paper concludes by observing that Indian judiciary is moving away from the implementation of capital punishment as there is greater emphasis on alternative modes of punishment and the international legal developments which are against the capital punishment.