Ethics · 19 Aug 2026
Assertion (A): The 17 death sentences recently awarded by a Fast Track Court across seven cases are statistically likely to face reversal at the appellate stage.
Reason (R): The trial court did not have psychiatric, jail-conduct and socio-economic mitigation reports before it, as mandated by the Supreme Court's ruling in Manoj & Ors v. State of Madhya Pradesh (2022), before imposing the death sentences.
Since 2016, High Courts have confirmed barely 1 in 10 death sentences referred to them and the Supreme Court has not confirmed a single death sentence since 2023 - a pattern of appellate reversal directly relevant to whether these 17 Fast Track Court sentences, delivered without Manoj-mandated mitigation reports, will ultimately stand.
GS4 case-study material is increasingly drawn from live judicial controversies; this question tests whether the aspirant connects a binding procedural precedent to its predictable appellate consequence, rather than treating the precedent as an isolated fact.
Manoj & Ors v. State of Madhya Pradesh (2022) requires documented mitigation reports before a death sentence; their absence in the Fast Track Court's 17 sentences aligns with the historically high reversal rate for death sentences at the appellate stage.
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