Court caseAIR 1980 SC 898

Bachan Singh was convicted of three murders and sentenced to death. His appeal, together with several others, raised the constitutional validity of the death penalty for murder and of the sentencing procedure requiring special reasons for it.

The majority upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty and section 354(3). Life imprisonment is the rule and death the exception, to be imposed only in the 'rarest of rare cases' when the alternative option is unquestionably foreclosed. Courts must weigh the aggravating and mitigating circumstances of both the crime and the criminal. Bhagwati J, in a later dissent, held the death penalty unconstitutional.