The apex court said that there is no uniformity in recent decisions on criteria for awarding death sentence which has become more judge-centric.
"In sentencing process, both the crime and the criminal are equally important. We have, unfortunately, not taken the sentencing process as seriously as it should be with the result that in capital offences, it has become judge-centric sentencing rather than principled sentencing," the bench said.
"This court has not endorsed the approach of aggravating and mitigating circumstances in Bachan Singh (case). However, this approach has been adopted in several decisions. This needs a fresh look. In any event, there is little or no uniformity in the application of this approach," said a bench of justices K S Radhakrishnan and Madan B Lokur.
