again through its judgments commented on the fact that there is a
pervasive need of a patterned sentencing guideline on the basis of
which sentencing disparity can be eliminated. In Swamy
Shraddananda alias Murali vs State of Karnataka the court went
to say that “coupled with the deficiency of the criminal justice
system is the lack of consistency in the sentencing process even by
this court. It is noted that Bachchan Singh laid down the
principles of rarest of rare cases. Machchi Sinch for practical
application crystallized the principle into five definitive
categories of cases of murder and in doing so also considerably
enlarged the scope for imposing death penalty. But the
unfortunate reality is that in later decisions neither the rarest of
rare principle nor the Machchi Singh categories were followed
uniformly and consistently”. But the courts have rigidly said that
it is the in the purview of the Legislature to form guideline and
not the Judiciary.
Hence, the prolonged loggerhead between the two pillars of our
Constitution is nothing but buying time for themselves at the
cost of the lives of innocent. Because once a death penalty is
awarded to an innocent based on imperfect facts and non
designated mitigating circumstances, his life would come to an
end. It is not just that there is disparity in sentencing, or in cases
of death penalty or rape but there are other offences in the IPC
which clearly brings similar disparities into light. It is time that
we should imbibe the finer aspects of the successful Justice System
in various parts of the world and make our Criminal Justice
System stronger and more efficient.