Tagged “aggravating-mitigating”

Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab (1983): structuring the 'rarest of rare' death-penalty doctrine

Three years after Bachan Singh restricted the death penalty to the 'rarest of rare' cases, a three-judge Bench in Machhi Singh gave that open-textured standard a working structure — five categories of circumstance and a 'balance sheet' method for weighing aggravating against mitigating factors. A digest of the facts, the framework, and the doctrine's contested later trajectory.