DEATH PENALTY IN INDIA, ANNUAL STATISTICS REPORT 2019

Key findings:

• Trial courts in India delivered 102 death sentences in 2019, over 60% fewer than the 162 death sentences passed in 2018.
  
  
• However, the proportion of death sentences imposed for murders involving sexual offences was at a four-year high in 2019 at 52.94% (54 out of 102 sentences).
  
  
• 2019 also saw the highest number of confirmations by High Courts in four years; 17 out of the 26 confirmations (65.38%) were in offences of murder involving sexual violence.
  
  
• The Supreme Court, primarily during the tenure of the previous Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, listed and heard 27 capital cases, the most in a year since 2001.
  
  
• One out of two sentences were for sexual violence-murder; in three out of four sexual violence-murder death sentences, children were the killer’s victims.