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Abstract
In Colonial India, death was prescribed as solitary of the punishments in the Indian Penal code, 1860, which listed a integer of capital crimes. The first hanging in independent India was that of Nadhuram Gadse as well as Narayan Apte in the Mahatma Gandhi assassination case on 15th Nov 1949. According to the constitution of India, The President and the Governors of state are bounce to act on the advice of the union committee of ministers while deciding on the mercy petitions. Death penalty has become an exemption from the rule after a modification to the Code of Criminal Procedure in 1973. Nevertheless, the Law Commission in its 35th report in 1967 assessed the dictate of the death penalty in India and recommended the retention of death penalty. Even after endorsement International Covenant on Civil as well as Political Rights that requires a evolution towards abolition of death penalty, India seems to be bearing into different way altogether. The principle of the death penalty being applied in the rarest of rare laid down in the milestone judgment of Bachan Singh v State of Punjab has been interpreted in a different way in various cases. This paper proposes to examine the relevance of the test of rarest of rare in subsequent cases and tries to trace down the contemporary trend of the death penalty, its effectiveness, and its effects on society.