Title: Human Sacrifice, Sentencing and the Death Penalty: Failings of the Supreme Court of India
Published on: February 23, 2020
Published in: Economic and Political Weekly
This article highlights the stark errors in the judicial discourse on human sacrifice. In the Ishwari Lal Yadav case, the Court completely disregarded the cultural context of human sacrifice and its implications on questions of culpability in criminal law. It is argued that the Court’s approach is contrary to the principle of individualised sentencing, and ignores evidence on the complex anthropological and psychological dimensions of human sacrifice.